SHILLONG, July 27: In a worrying trend, as many as 330 fresh COVID cases were detected in East Khasi Hills District on Tuesday with a significant number of cases being detected among unvaccinated people.
East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Isawanda Laloo said that out of the new cases, 77.57% were not vaccinated while only 3.64% had been fully vaccinated. The rest had taken one dose of the vaccine.
The DC said that vaccinated persons can still get infected but the data strongly indicates that vaccination greatly reduces the likelihood of getting infected with the virus and fully vaccinated persons have a much lower chance of getting infected.
She also said that vaccination significantly reduces chances of severe symptoms, hospitalisation and death.
Out of the 330 new cases, 256 patients had not been vaccinated including 147 from urban areas and 109 from rural areas.
She also said as per information from the Health Department, the Delta variant constitutes 100% of cases in the state, adding that it is a variant of concern and highly infectious, and the number of cases as well as hospitalization cases may start increasing rapidly.
She urged the public to follow COVID-appropriate behavior meticulously at all times, avoid unnecessary travel and exposure as far as possible, and to vaccinate at the earliest if not already done so.
Meanwhile, Meghalaya continues to witness a spike in COVID-19 cases with a total of 710 fresh cases and nine deaths being recorded in the last 24 hours.
453 people also recovered on the same day. The state now has 5332 active cases while the death toll has risen to 1,040. A total of 56,101 persons have recovered in the state so far.
