Covid positivity rate in state declines to 9.6 pc

SHILLONG, June 13: The positivity rate in Meghalaya, including COVID-19 hotspot East Khasi Hills district, has continued to decline.
The positivity rate has come done from 11.74% to 10.11% over a fortnight. This figure a month ago was 15.46%. In the last seven days, the rate has come down further and stands at 9.6%.
The single-day positivity rate on Sunday was 5.47%.
The positivity rate in the East Khasi Hills district decreased from 23.54% a month ago to 13.04% now.
In the last seven days, 8,536 tests were conducted across the district and 1,113 were confirmed as COVID-19 infected. Overall, 2,933 out of 29,005 tests done across the state during this period turned out to be positive.
West Jaintia Hills district recorded a positivity rate of 17.61% in the last seven days with 259 out of 1,471 people testing positive over a week.
South Garo Hills clocked a positivity rate of 13.8% followed by South West Khasi Hills district with 10.27%, Ri-Bhoi district with 9.7% and West Garo Hills with 8.27%.
A Health Department official said the number of cases has been fluctuating depending on the volume of testing.
He said more and more people are coming forward for vaccination and about 5,000 people are taking the jab every day for the last four days.
The biggest worry for the officials has been the fatality rate with the novel coronavirus having claimed 733 lives, 569 of them in East Khasi Hills district alone.
Most of the people who died of infection either had co-morbidities or were brought to the hospital at a very late stage, the official said.
Meghalaya has so far tallied 41,906 confirmed cases of COVID-19 out of which 36,550 have recovered. The state has conducted 6,28,160 tests till date – 1,87,063 RTPCR, 12,097 CBNAAT, 23,096 TRUENAT and 4,05,904 rapid antigen tests.