• Studies show vax efficacy against Omicron: IDSP
• Get vaccinated before wave 3 hits
Morung Express News
Dimapur | January 8
Dimapur has been placed under the COVID ‘Yellow’ zone. Nagaland has a 5-tier COVID situational alert mechanism in place, graded according to contagion. It starts from Level 0 (Green) with Level 5 (Red) rated as graded as highest level of alert.
“In view of the increasing positivity rate, growth in weekly cases and increasing positivity rate among self-tests/random tests, Dimapur is put under situational level 2 (Yellow),” informed the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) in its weekly COVID roundup released on January 8.
This implies taking stricter safety measures at the individual level to avoid rapid spread in the community.
The state reported 54 cases over the past week (January 1-7) at a sample positivity rate of 1.6 percent. 49 were detected in Dimapur – of which 30 were detected on a single day (January 6) – implying a 100 percent rise from the past week. The weekly positivity rate, at 2 percent, in Dimapur was higher than the state average.
Further, 50 percent of the cases from the week were detected through self-test/random tests and 35 percent were travellers.
There was 1 COVID death reported from Dimapur and 5 patients were hospitalized in various districts.
There were 23 recoveries during the same period with Dimapur reporting over 20 recoveries.
As per the IDSP data, there was a marked decline in sample tests during the festive period or the last weeks of December. As opposed 3439 samples collected and tested over the past week, only 3172 samples were tested over the two week period from December 18-31 with only 1002 samples tested in the first 7 days of January.
Vaccine
A 7-day break during the Christmas-New Year period, the vaccination drive resumed with 8409 doses administered over the past week. It took the total inoculation to 13,42,400 doses with 7,61,698 administered the first dose and 5,80,702 administered the second, as on January 7.
“Several studies consistently show good effectiveness of vaccines against Omicron VOC and should be availed urgently before the 3rd wave hits the state,” the IDSP maintained.
Till date, a total of 20,289 cases have been reported from the 15–18 year-age group with 2 COVID-19 deaths, it added. “Vaccination is now available for those born in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and should be availed to avoid hospitalizations, deaths and enable continuation of learning in schools. Over 1 crore teenagers between 15–18-year age group have been vaccinated in the country including 401 in Nagaland.”
