COVID-19: Looking Beyond Gurugram and Faridabad in Haryana

For perspective, Haryana and Chhattisgarh have similar population figures. The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Haryana on August 28 was 60,596 while Chhattisgarh had 27,233 confirmed cases. But Haryana has conducted 10,76,063 tests  so far while Chhattisgarh has done only 5,48,182. That is, the latter has conducted 36,835 tests per million people, while the former just 18,750.

Two districts of Haryana which are part of the National Capital Region, Faridabad and Gurugram, are the ones that are most affected by the novel coronavirus.  The most number of active cases though are in Panipat with 9.6 per cent and Gurugram with 9.5 per cent comes a close second.

However, Gurugram, from a high of 1,359 in the second week of June, has managed to bring down the cases to about 482 in the first week of August. The couple of past weeks has witnessed an uptick, with the week August 22-28 ending with 799 new cases in the district.
Although Karnal, with about 7.3 per cent of the active cases, follows Panipat and Gurugram, Hisar district has almost doubled the number of active cases in a week, with 323 on August 22 to 664 active cases on August 28.
But it is Faridabad that tops the list of confirmed cases with 12,304 or 20 per cent of the cases followed by Gurugram with   11,569  or 19.1 per cent of the confirmed cases in the state.

But it is the fatalities in Faridabad that is troubling. The district has reported more 25 per cent of the state’s tally of deaths due to COVID-19, while Gurugram is not far behind with about 20 per cent of the deaths.

The other districts that are highly infected are Sonipat, Ambala, Rewari, and Rohtak. A look at the graph below shows how the highly affected districts have fared over the past few months. The first district to report a hundred cases was Gurugram, on May 6. Considering that as day Zero, each district has been plotted in the graph offsetting the day each district reported its first 100.

In Haryana, 49,710 patients have recovered of the 60,596 confirmed cases in the state. The most recoveries have been in Faridabad and Gurugram, which together add up to about 44 per cent of the recoveries in the state. In Faridabad about 92.9 per cent of the cases have recovered, while in Gurugram recoveries stand at 90.5 per cent.

The deaths reported across all districts in the state do not exceed 2 per cent. Only Nuh district is about 1.94 per cent, but in absolute terms the number of cases are 720 of which 14 deaths have been reported.

It is in Yamunanagar that almost 43 per cent of the cases are active. Sirsa district, with almost 36 per cent and Kurukshetra with almost 37 per cent active cases, have a higher caseload. Kaithal district too can be added to this watchlist, but the total number of cases in the district is 933.

With woefully inadequate testing in the state, the extent of the spread of the virus cannot be understood, especially since much of the concentration has been the district adjoining Delhi, while the rest of the state has not received the attention required.