New Delhi: The novel coronavirus appears to have made base in the Indian archipelago of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
As of Monday, data reveals, the union territory has seen a steady rise in cases in the last 10 days, and also recorded the highest positivity rate and second highest reproduction (Rt) value in the country.
So far, UT of Andaman and Nicobar Islands has recorded 1,625 Covid-19 cases with 20 deaths and 709 recoveries. India’s figures are at 22.69 lakh cases with 45,257 deaths and 15.83 lakh recoveries.
Surge in cases
With a population of about 3.81 lakh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands was one of the few regions in the country that had managed to keep the caseload low.
Data available on covidtoday.in shows that after its first case on 26 March, the UT reported single-digit daily cases through April, May, June and most of July. It was only on 19 July that it reported double digit figures for the first time with 15 new cases.
Since then the seven-day daily moving average (average of daily cases over seven days) has increased over 20 times from five on 19 July to 113 on 10 August.
In this period, India’s seven-day daily moving average increased from 51,436 on 31 July to 58,831 on 10 August.
Government data reveals that Andaman and Nicobar Islands saw a surge of over 1,000 cases in just the last 10 days — with cases rising from 548 on 31 July to 1,625 on 10 August.
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Highest positivity rate in country
Along with the surge in cases, the UT has also reported the highest test positivity rate in the country.
Positivity rate implies the percentage of tests done that come back positive. The test positivity rate in Andaman and Nicobar Islands is over thrice the national average.
As of Monday, India’s test positivity stood at 9.65 per cent while Andaman and Nicobar Islands test positivity rate was at 31.9.
Rt value
Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ Rt value, which indicates the number of new cases expected to emerge from a single case and tells the severity of the outbreak, stood at almost double the national average.
India’s Rt value stood at 1.09 while Andaman and Nicobar Islands recorded it at 1.34. This is the second highest in the country, behind Chandigarh (1.37).
Case fatality rate
Case fatality rate implies the number of deaths out of the total cases. While India’s case fatality rate stood at 2.83 per cent Monday, Andamans’ rate was at 3.3 per cent.
The islands reported over 15 deaths in the span of the last 10 days alone. On 31 July, the toll was at 5. This figure has now jumped to 20.
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Administration pins blame on returnees
Officials in the UT administration told ThePrint that the surge is due to returnees from other states bringing back the virus.
“People who came by flights did not quarantine themselves and roamed around in markets and spread the virus which has caused this chaos,” said Dr Avijit Roy, Deputy Director, Directorate of Health Services.
The administration has enforced a strict lockdown in south Andaman, which has the bulk of the cases, until Tuesday.
While district-wise data is not available, the government health bulletin reveals that 263 of the 367 isolation beds in south Andaman are occupied. In contrast, north and middle Andaman have 11 occupied beds of 123. There are no hospital admissions in Nicobar yet.
“Since Nicobar is a tribal district, we maintained strict vigilance on people traveling there. Nicobar now has only 8 cases as of Monday,” said Roy.
Adding to the health infrastructure’s woes is the fact that close to 100 healthcare workers have been infected by the virus. “Forty five doctors in the core coronavirus team have been infected and nearly 50 paramedical staff have also been infected. As cases have surged our manpower has been severely hit which has affected health care,” he said.
Revisiting strategy
Despite the surge, the administration claims that it has taken urgent measures to curb the spread of Covid.
“North and Middle Andaman already have lockdown until further notice. Flights have been stopped from high burden states till 18 August. We have reoriented our team, and ramped up testing further. We have also taken 80 beds in a private hospital and added 550 new beds in Covid care centre,” said Roy.
“Ultimately it will come down to local participation and for that we have involved local leadership to spread awareness on do’s and don’ts,” he added.
This report has been updated to correct the Rt denomination.
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