COVID-19: Second consecutive single-week high for Nagaland

• 18 deaths past week
• Superspreader in Mon
• 50% positivity in Dimapur
• 316 recoveries for the week

Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 8

Nagaland recorded another high this week (May 1-7), topping the previous week’s score of 1,087 COVID-19 cases. As per the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme’s (IDSP) weekly COVID roundup released on May 8, Nagaland registered 1,604, the highest single-week tally so far.  

It included 1,194 traced contacts, 256 travellers/returnees, 142 armed forces personnel and 12 frontline workers. Dimapur accounted for over 60 percent or 991 of the weekly total, followed by Kohima- 468, Mon- 57, Mokokchung- 33, Tuensang- 20, Longleng- 10, Zunheboto- 9, Phek- 7, Peren- 6, Kiphire- 2, Wokha- 1.  

There were 160 hospital admissions during the week, of which 124 were in Dimapur.

The weekly sample positivity rate further increased, shooting up to 34 percent (out of 4,781 samples) as compared to the previous week’s 25 percent. The overall rate for the state was well over 10 percent.

While the state-wide figure was bad enough, the situation in Dimapur and Kohima was at whole another level. The weekly sample positivity rate for Dimapur was 50 percent and 39 percent in Kohima. Two other districts— Mon and Mokokchung were 13 and 12 percent, respectively. In Peren and Zunheboto, it was 9 and 8 percent.

Further, as per covid19india.org web portal, the number of new infections has grown by an average of 1.6 percent every day in the last one week (April 30-May 7) in Nagaland. Meanwhile, the testing rate was at 70.5 per thousand population.

Deaths and recoveries
A total of 18 deaths were reported across the state during the week with 12 occurring in Dimapur, 3 in Kohima, and 1 each in Mon, Mokokchung and Phek. It was the highest number of deaths recorded in a single week so far. The death rate for the state increased to 0.72 percent almost nearing the national rate of 1.09 percent.

There were also 316 recoveries across the state during the 7-day period— 226 in Dimapur, 61 in Kohima, 10 in Tuensang, 8 each in Phek and Mokokchung, 2 in Peren and 1 in Mon. These figures were collated from the daily case updates tweeted by the Health & Family Welfare Minister.

Superspreader in Mon
A superspreader event was also reported in Mon. As per the IDSP, 45 persons tested positive after attending a church revival camp, held from April 21-25, in the district. The cases were detected from 69 samples, returning a positivity rate of 65 percent.

It added that testing and contact tracing was still underway and the district administration has directed all attendees to self-isolate and turn up for testing. It further reminded, “Social and religious events are high risk factors for such superspreading events.”

Random sampling
Random sampling of 210 persons (shopkeepers and taxi drivers) in Kohima resulted in the detection of 128 cases. It returned a positivity rate of 61 percent pointing to community spread though not acknowledged by the government.   

As per the data available at covid19india.org, 7,247 out of every 10 lakh people in Nagaland have tested positive.

Vaccination
The IDSP informed that 18,825 doses of vaccines were administered in the state the past week. The state-wide total was 2,24,839 doses as on May 7. It was inclusive of 47,967 second doses.