State sees no relief from Covid amid fear of third wave
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 30 2021: Ever since the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic began sometime between the last week of March and first week of April this year, the state is seeing no relief from the wave of the infectious disease even as an inevitable third wave is lurking.

At the end of the first wave, the state reported zero new cases on March 4 and 15 after which the number of daily new cases increased from the intervening two weeks of March and April.

Daily new cases reached the three digit mark for the first time during the second wave on April 23 by reporting 104 new cases.

The state recorded rapid spike in daily new cases from April 28 onwards.

The highest ever single day positive case was recorded on May 30 with a record number of 1032 new cases.

On the other hand, highest single day positivity rate was recorded on May 22 at 23.93 per cent.

Daily fatality remained nil for a long period from January second week to April mid with occasional death of one or two patients.

Fatality trail picked up from April 19 onwards and reached the peak on May 19, which recorded highest single day fatality of 23 deaths.

In terms of monthly positivity rate, May recorded 18.27 per cent, which is the highest monthly positivity rate and June recorded 10.34 per cent.

At the same time, June recorded 19,039 new positive cases and 343 fatalities while May recorded 18,894 new cases and 402 fatalities.

Number of tests conducted was also significantly higher in June (184163) than in May (103392), due to aggressive mass testing measures taken up by administrations of different districts, especially Imphal West and Imphal East.

Though it is obvious that the state has attained peak of the second wave, the present situation is nowhere near good.

From studying past records of the state as well as the country and global scenario, a positivity rate below 5 per cent is required to get a sizeable relief from the pandemic.

However, the daily positivity rate remains above 10 per cent with occasional drop at around 8 per cent.

Meanwhile, the second wave also saw deaths of several healthy individuals in their prime age.

Despite the fear of possible impact among children in the third wave, fatality rate among the under-18 years population is very low as only six death cases have been reported till date in this age group with an 18 months old baby the youngest victim of the pandemic in the state.

The oldest victim of the pandemic was a 105 years old woman.

Those in the age group of 51 to 75 years are the worst affected while those in the age group of 31 to 50 and 76 to 85 are moderately affected in terms of fatality.

One third of the victims are male.

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