Uttarakhand: 1,000 children under 9 years of age test COVID-19 positive in past 10 days

Amid the unprecedented second wave of the COVID-19 crisis, over 1,000 children below 9 years of age contracted the infection in Uttarakhand in the last ten days, informed the state health department on Sunday. Some of the children have also been hospitalised. 

As per the state health department, only 2,131 children had contracted COVID-19 last year. 264 children tested positive from April 1 to April 15 and 1,053 children tested positive from April 16-April 30, and 1,618 from May 1-May 14.

As per an ANI report, the President of Social Development for Communities Foundation (SDCF) Anoop Nautiyal has informed that there are 771 active cases per one lakh people in the state which is seven times more than that of per one lakh people in Uttar Pradesh and also alleged that the state government failed to increase testing and curbing deaths.

Meanwhile, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Thursday stirred a major controversy by claiming that the coronavirus had a 'right to live', as it is also a living thing like humans. 

COVID situation In Uttarakhand

According to the Union Health Ministry, there are 79,379 active coronavirus cases in Uttarakhand and 4,426 died due to the deadly disease. Around 51 out of the 141 people living in a village in Uttarakhand's Pauri district have tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Saturday.

The village has been declared a containment zone and villagers have been put in home isolation, they said. Residents of Kurkhyal village in Pauri's Ekeshwar block had been showing symptoms of COVID-19 like fever for some time. A health department team from the primary health center at Pathisain took samples of villagers for testing on May 11, said Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Satpuli, Sandip Kumar.

The reports were received on Friday. Fifty-one out of the total 141 villagers were found infected with the coronavirus, he said. The villagers have been put in home isolation and given medicine kits while the village has been declared a containment zone, he added.

(With ANI Inputs)