Timely vaccination, clean environment, observance of SOPs said to be main reasons

Shopian: With just two new Covid-19 cases and 17 recoveries reported on Monday, the deadly Covid-19 disease is almost gone from this southern Kashmir district.
Shopian, according to officials, currently has only 40 active cases of Covid-19. A total of 58 deaths related to Covid have been reported in the district since the pandemic broke out last year.
The data also reveals that a total of 5,536 people have contracted the virus in the district, which is only 1.84 percent of the population, the lowest proportion in any Kashmir district.
Similarly, the mortality rate of 1.047 percent is the lowest in any Kashmir district.
It’s pertinent to mention that Shopian was the first south Kashmir district where Covid-19 situation had gone worse last year.
According to Showkat Ahmad, a health care worker in Shopian, no emergency situation arose this year while many other districts were battling for oxygen concentrators and cylinders.
“There were rare cases where oxygen cylinders were needed for home isolated people and the same were provided to them in no time,” he said.
Experts believe that the fresh air and clean environment of the mountainous district could be among the reasons that the disease didn’t escalate here.
Chief Medical Officer Shopian, Dr Arshad Hussain Tak, believes that the timely vaccination of the vulnerable age group (45 and above) was done here before any other district in Kashmir.
“We believe that cooperation of the masses who religiously followed the guidelines and SOPs are the prime reason that the district witnessed the least positivity rate as well as death rate. Plus, timely vaccination of the above 45 age group was a main reason,” he said, adding that better environmental conditions could also be among the reasons but it will be too early to say without any scientific study.
Dr Tak said that in the last three days, 6 percent of the population in the age group of 18 to 45 has also been vaccinated in the district.

Raashid Hassan