COVID-19 situation at its peak in Ludhiana, new cases include UK strain, says police commissioner

Representative image

The COVID-19 situation in Ludhiana is at its peak with the UK strain of the novel coronavirus also found in some fresh cases, said Rakesh Agrawal, Commissioner of Police Ludhiana on March 25. He urged people to adhere to current guidelines including the night curfew to avoid any further strict measures.

This comes a day after Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey told the Rajya Sabha that no new strain of the novel coronavirus has been detected in Maharashtra, Kerala and Punjab and the recent surge in infections in these states are due to SARS-CoV-2 that has been driving the pandemic for over a year.

“Cases being reported daily in Ludhiana includes UK strain as well. COVID-19 situation is at its peak here,” Agrawal told news agency ANI.

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

Punjab reported 2,634 new COVID-19 cases on March 24, which increased the virus tally in the state to 2,20,276. It also recorded 39 fresh fatalities on the day taking took the death toll to 6,474. The number of active cases increased from 19,403 on March 23 to 20,522 on March 24, according to a medical bulletin.

Jalandhar reported a maximum of 351 cases, Ludhiana 320, Mohali 303, Amritsar 290, Patiala 276 and Hoshiarpur 249, among districts that witnessed new cases. The districts which saw deaths included Jalandhar (11), Hoshiarpur (4), Kapurthala (4) and Rupnagar (4).

A total of 1,455 coronavirus patients were discharged after recovering from the infection, taking the number of those recovered to 1,93,280, according to the bulletin. There are 29 critical patients who are on ventilator support while 293 are on oxygen support, it said.

A total of 57,03,944 samples have been collected for testing so far in the state, the bulletin said.

(With inputs from PTI)

Follow our full coverage on COVID-19 here.