Although Jammu and Kashmir recorded its lowest Covid-19 count in eight months in October, the union territory has been witnessing a slow and consistent rise in active cases over the past two weeks.

The active cases in J&K had been on the decline, reaching its lowest ebb on October 20 with 800 cases. However after October 20, the active cases slowly went up and reached 981 on November 4, an increase of 22% in 15 days.

“The cases are rising slowly but it is not a threatening scenario. We are not seeing many admissions. Around 40,000 tests are conducted daily, of which around 100 persons test positive,” said Prof Dr Mohammad Salim Khan, the nodal officer for Covid and the head of the department of community medicine at Government Medical College, Srinagar.

The UT is now recording around 100 cases daily as against the daily average of 80 cases in the second and third week of October. Last month, the UT recorded a total of 10 deaths while in just four days of November, J&K has already seen six deaths.

“There were some deaths but these people were admitted around two weeks ago. There is no need to worry but yes alertness is the key,” said Dr Khan.

The active cases are highest in the districts of Srinagar, Baramulla, Budgam and Ganderbal in Kashmir valley and Jammu district of the Jammu division.

On November 4, Srinagar has 476 active cases, Baramulla 156, Budgam 85, Ganderbal 68 and Jammu 45.

The districts of Shopian in Kashmir and Samba in Jammu have mostly maintained zero active cases in the past 12 days. In fact, Shopian has maintained zero active cases since October 14 and just reported a case on Thursday after over three weeks.

In the past one week, the active cases in six districts – Shopian, Kulgam, Kathua, Samba, Kishtwar and Udhampur – have mostly remained five or below.

“Overall, we are fine. There aren’t many new cases, even though there are gatherings and people don’t wear masks or maintain social distancing. The main reasons include vaccination coverage and an increased exposure of the community to the virus in the first and the second wave,” said Dr Khalid Abbas, block medical officer of Zainapora in Shopian.

“South Kashmir’s Shopian and Kulgam were badly affected by Covid in the beginning. Increased exposure of the community led to some sort of herd immunity,” he said.

Jammu and Kashmir logged 2,819 Covid infections in October. This is the lowest since February, when the first wave had receded and just 1,935 cases were reported. In September this year, around 4,011 infections had been reported from the union territory.

October’s test positivity rate (TPR) in J&K– the percentage of tests turning positive out of the total tests conducted – also dropped to 0.20% from 0.27% in September. If TPR is below 5%, it indicates that the infection is under control in the community.

The data reveals that on an average, 43,482 tests were conducted daily in October so far, against 49,374 daily tests in September, 53,359 in August and 56,719 in July.

Overall, the union territory conducted 13.47 lakh tests in October, as against September when 14.81 lakh tests were carried out. In August, 16.54 lakh tests were conducted.

Since September, the vaccination drive has been very rigorous. Around 65 lakh people have been vaccinated in J&K with one or both doses during the two months.

The overall number of people who have recovered reached 3,27,232, prompting the recovery rate to reach 98.37%. Since the pandemic started, the overall cases in J&K have reached 3,32,651 and the death toll has reached 4,438. Jammu district has the highest number of fatalities with 1,145, followed by Srinagar with 850 deaths.