Anantnag: With a single-day spike of 64 Covid-19 cases in Anantnag and Kulgam districts of south Kashmir on Saturday, the tally of the region has reached 403 – as much as 36 percent of the total tally in Jammu and Kashmir.
J&K witnessed its highest single-day spike of 108 cases on Saturday, 47 of them from Kulgam district and 17 from Anantnag district. The new cases raised the tally of the two districts to 119 and 162, in that order.
Shopian district had 107 cases by Saturday evening and Pulwama 15. The total count of these four districts, comprising the south Kashmir region, reached 403, constituting 36 percent of the 1,121 total cases recorded in 18 affected districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kulgam district has emerged as the new hotspot in south Kashmir since last week, as people from outside have been brought to the district by the authorities.
As per official reports, the district has witnessed a steep surge since May 10, “with around 95 of our total cases (119) being reported in these 7 days,” a senior official in the district administration told Kashmir Reader.
He said that 40 out of the 47 tested positive on Saturday were people who had recently reached Kashmir from outside.
“That has precisely been the reason of the spike in numbers: people coming from outside,” the official said, adding, “The good thing is that all of them are in isolation.”
The influx of people from outside has also affected the Covid-19 numbers in Anantnag district, where the curve was seen to be flattening till May 12. Kashmir Reader had reported on May 12 that the district had witnessed only two new cases in as many as five days.
“The next day, though, May 13, we had 18 new positive cases. Again, on May 16 we witnessed 17 new cases,” an official from Anantnag district administration said.
The worry for Anantnag district is that 12 of the 17 persons tested positive on Saturday were pregnant women.
“And all of them were from different places. It is not a cluster, that is what the worrying factor is,” a doctor posted at Anantnag’s Covid-19 hospital in Bijbehara said.
Shopian district, which was the first in south Kashmir to report a positive case, has shown considerable decline in the number of new positive cases.
“We have had zero cases in the last two days and only 7 in the past week (since May 10). That is really heartening to see given the early surge we witnessed here in the district,” an official from Shopian district administration said.
Pulwama district has been the least affected since the beginning. The district has only 15 positive cases so far.
“We had even declared the district as a green zone recently, as we had no active cases. Unfortunately, the status remained short-lived as some people tested positive. Still, we are better off than other districts,” an official dealing with Covid-19 in Pulwama said.
The good news from south Kashmir has been the low mortality rate (0.24 percent). There has been only one death so far in the region, which was in Anantnag district.

Suhail A Shah