Ahead of Christmas, Health department urges cautious celebrations

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Nov. 28 (EMN): Citing the new spike in Covid-19 cases across the country in the past two weeks, post-Diwali celebrations, Nagaland’s Health authorities have cautioned that this trend calls for urgent and due care when the state goes into Christmas festivities very soon.

In its weekly bulletin (as of November 27), the Health and Family Welfare department stated that the arrival of winter and laxity in enforcement of Covid-19 appropriate behaviours in the past two weeks have resulted in hospitals getting overwhelmed in many metros.

Even in Nagaland, there was a 52% increase in Covid-19 hospital admissions from the previous week signifying rise in symptomatic cases (moderate, severe or critical cases).

It reminded that the ministry of Home Affairs had, on November 25, issued an order to the states, calling for more stringent preventive measures including: strict enforcement of Covid-19 appropriate behaviours; enforcement of containment zones in colonies/areas with more cases or clusters; local restrictions like night curfew after assessing local situation; curb on social, religious gatherings by giving flexibility among states to reduce ceiling to 100 persons or less in closed spaces; and strict work safety measures like attendance staggering and work from home arrangements.

“Households and workplaces continue to be the most common places of infection as ‘living room’ spread during family gatherings and events become very significant during the festive season. We should pay attention to the peril of small gatherings among family and friends who may appear healthy especially with the festive season around the corner,” the department advised.

In the past week, there were seven Covid-19 fatalities and 483 fresh detections.

“The sample positivity rate remains high at 9.9%. Sixty-eight percent of deaths are below 60 years of age as the most affected age group is between 30-50 years. The positivity among symptomatic/pre-op screening/ travel purposes coming to Flu clinics increased to 11%. 67% of cases this week were from traced contacts in the community.

“Positivity rate among household contacts 29% continue to remain more than the office goers. The positivity rate among the students continues to rise at 19%,” it added.