In a period of nine days, Pimpri-Chinchwad has seen a 14 per cent dip in positivity rate, which, officials said, is part of the falling trend witnessed from middle of September.
Even as doctors at the civic-run YCM hospital have decided to tread cautiously on use of plasma therapy, the industrial city of Pimpri-Chinchwad has witnessed a sharp fall in Covid-19 positive cases. In a period of nine days, Pimpri-Chinchwad has seen a 14 per cent dip in positivity rate, which, officials said, is part of the falling trend witnessed from middle of September.
From September 26 when 1,151 positive cases were recorded (28 per cent positivity) to October 4 when 544 cases were recorded (14 per cent positivity), the nine-day period has seen positive cases falling (See box). PCMC is currently conducting 4,000 tests daily.
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“As I said earlier, post Ganesh festival we witnessed 20-25 per cent cases. After that we saw 16-17 per cent cases. And then cases fluctuated between 15 and 20 per cent. The latest figures are part of the continuing trend of fall in positive numbers,” Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar told this paper on Sunday.
Stating that the falling numbers do not mean that they will lower their guard, the PCMC chief said, “We will have to guard against complacency and continue our mission to reduce positivity rate as well mortality rate.”
As part of further stringent measures to reduce positivity rate, Hardikar said, “From Monday, the civic administration will launch an aggressive drive against those who are not using face masks. This will help in further reducing the positivity rate.” He said the fine for not using mask will remain at Rs 500.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Santosh Patil said, “Positive cases are dipping everywhere in the state. In July and August, we saw highest number of cases. After that since third week of September, cases are falling. We will have to take extra precautions during Dussehra and Diwali when the chances of people mingling freely are very high.”
PCMC additional health chief Dr Pavan Salve said, “Falling positive numbers is a good sign but we have to shun complacency. The ensuing festive season will be a big challenge. We are holding webinars with housing societies urging them to take steps to control the spread of the virus in their areas. Similarly, we will be talking to Navratri mandals.”
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Meanwhile, at YCM hospital doctors have decided to adopt a cautious approach on plasma therapy after the condition of four patients, who were given plasma therapy, had turned serious. “The condition of these four patients was deteriorating. We then decided to try plasma therapy on them. After plasma therapy, their condition further deteriorated. Fortunately, their condition soon improved and they were discharged,” said Dr Aniket Lathi, who is part of the team giving plasma therapy to patients at YCM hospital.
After that incident, Dr Lathi said they have decided to adopt a cautious approach. “In the initial stages, we had registered high success rate with plasma therapy. We have realised it cannot be given to every patient. We have become cautious,” he said.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
