AHMEDABAD: A record 26 people succumbed to the COVID-19 disease in hotspot Ahmedabad in Gujarat in a single day on Monday, taking the overall number of the fatalities in the district to 234, officials said.
The biggest city in Gujarat also reported 259 new coronavirus positive cases, which now accounts for 4,076 of the total 5,804 cases in the state.
With the recovery of 87 more patients, the total number of the people discharged from hospitals in the district rose to 620, according to the officials.
Ahmedabad had reported deaths of 23 COVID-19 patients on Sunday and 20 fatalities on Saturday.
"Of the 26 deceased, 14 suffered from no comorbidities except the viral infection. The youngest of these patients, a 26-year-old woman, suffered from TB," an official release said.
Meanwhile, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) said the rate of doubling of coronavirus cases in the city, which accounts for a majority of the total cases reported between April 15-20, has been improved while the rate of increase in the active cases reduced to below 6 per cent in the last two days, with more number of patients getting discharged.
"The civic body has also increased its focus on potential 'super spreaders' or people like vegetable vendors and shopkeepers who are likely to spread coronavirus much faster."
"They are provided with masks and hand sanitiser free of cost apart from screening them in large numbers," said Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra.
From the doubling rate of 3-4 days between April 15-20, it is now increased to eight days by April 27-28, he said.
"We have further increased the Coronavirus doubling rate to 12 days and also checked the increase in the active cases at below 6 per cent in the last two days," Nehra said in a video message.
He said efforts were on to reduce the active cases to zero and to control the spread of the disease by May end.
"We would be getting 2,000 cases per day with a four-day doubling rate and 1000 cases a day with an eight-day doubling rate. It is, however, getting stabilised.
Our health system is ready to handle the cases we are getting now, and a large number of people are also getting discharged," he said.
Nehra said 11,651 potential "super spreaders," were screened in the last 15 days by health teams of the civic body.
"A total of 2,714 samples were taken of the suspected cases, and 222 persons isolated," he added.