Nagaland witnesses steep rise in rate of Covid-19 positive traced contacts among confirmed cases

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Sep. 26 (EMN): The percentage of positive traced contacts among total confirmed cases in Nagaland has increased from 1% in the second week of July to 22% as of this week.

According to the Covid-19 weekly bulletin from the department of Health and Family Welfare, the positivity rate has continuously increased in the last 4-5 weeks. Moreover, young people under 40 years are more affected and 18% of the positive traced contacts are students.

‘This very mobile age group can transmit the virus to the high-risk groups. Italy, which saw one of the biggest Covid-19 outbreaks in the world, had 10-15% of the intensive unit care patients under 50 years of age,’ it informed.

‘The current death rate of 0.19% is lower than that of the country but mortality could be much higher once the virus infects the high-risk groups. Till now only 0.3% of positive cases are with comorbidity and only 4% is above 60 years of age. The actual impact on the high-risk groups has not been seen yet,’ it read.

According to the weekly data on sample testing, the positivity rate for the past week remains high at 10%.Further, 33% of the positive cases the past week were from traced contacts, it added. A total of 23,916 contacts have been traced by surveillance teams including 9,497 primary contacts.

‘Household contacts (34%) and government employees (30%) together constitute 64% of all traced contacts. Most people were infected within the same household and in work places. Maximum positive traced contacts are below 40 years of age,’ it informed.

The median age for confirmed positive cases till date is 32 years, while the ages range from 1 month-93 years.