Highest one-day rise of 1,790 Covid cases in state, 8 deaths

The Gujarat government Tuesday made it mandatory for people coming from Maharashtra to carry a negative RT-PCR certificate not older than 72 hours.

First time since December 24 last year, the state has recorded eight fatalities due to the coronavirus disease on Wednesday. As many as 1,790 fresh infections were also reported in Gujarat with state health officials attributing the surge to the people coming from neighbouring Maharashtra.

The Gujarat government Tuesday made it mandatory for people coming from Maharashtra to carry a negative RT-PCR certificate not older than 72 hours. This decision was taken in view of a sharp rise in virus cases in Maharashtra, which reported as many as 31,855 new cases on Wednesday.

In Rajkot, across the city and rural jurisdiction, at least 164 new cases and one fatality were reported on the day, civic officials said. Among the infected are a senior additional civil judge and 10 staff members of the Rajkot district court, a court officer said.

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“The judge and the staff members, posted in the district court, have tested positive. We have sought guidance from the Gujarat High Court as to what our next step should be, including closing down the court for a few days. We are waiting for the direction of the High Court and, therefore, no decision has been taken in this matter so far,” the officer said.
The officer added the Rajkot Bar Association had made a representation urging that the court which was presided over by the senior civil judge, who has contracted the viral disease, should be kept closed till April 1. The court administration is yet to take a call.

Oxygen demand
With 8,823 active Covid-19 cases, the state government said the oxygen demand on the day averaged around 91 cubic metric tonnes. During the second week of November, when active cases in the state ranged around 12,000-odd patients, the average per day demand of oxygen stood at around 135 cubic metric tonnes. In September, when over 16,000 patients were undergoing treatment, Gujarat reported oxygen consumption at an average of 241 metric tonne per day.

Serosurvey report published
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has announced that a second city-wide serosurvey, conducted between August 15 and 29 last year, has now been published in the Indian Journal of Public Health. The serosurvey had found that 31.92% of contacts of Covid-19 cases already demonstrated IgG antibodies against the coronavirus.

“Thus, our study justified the need for contact-tracing strategy. As per our findings from our study, family contacts have seropositivity of 39.36%, whereas other contacts have seropositivity of 28.72%. Thus, our study generated evidences and helped in scientifically clarifying the risk categorization as well as testing strategy for the contacts of cases for effectively controlling the inevitable spread of pandemic,” a press release issued by the AMC said.

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