Puducherry on Wednesday witnessed its highest ever spike of 59 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the tally of infections in the union territory to 461. A chart issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare said 59 fresh cases were reported in Union Territory during last 24 hours ending 10 am on Wednesday. This has shot up the total cases in this former French colony to 461. The total active cases stood at 276, while 176 cases were treated and discharged so far. The fatalities continued to remain at nine with no fresh case being reported now. The chart said while 12 of the 59 fresh cases were admitted to the state-run Indira Gandhi Medical college and hospital (IGMGH) 46 cases were admitted to centrally administered JIPMER. The remaining one case was admitted to the Government GH in Mahe, an enclave of Puducherry in Kerala. With the surge in positive cases, Lt Governor Kiran Bedi expressed fear that if there was failure on the part of the people to observe social distancing and wearing masks, the day was not far off for Puducherry to see outbreak of 100 new cases in a day. She said the managements of private industries should also ensure that the workers in their units adhered to the norms of lockdown and wear masks, carry out sanitation and maintain social distancing. "Already one or two industries were found to be cause of large incidence of the COVID-19 in Puducherry," she said and added that people should be very cautious particularly while going to markets and other places. She said, "Puducherry is racing towards a spike." Meanwhile, Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao said mobile units would be pressed into service in villages across the Union Territory from Thursday to test swabs to identify prevalence of COVID-19. He told reporters here that people in villages might not be aware of the pandemic they were suffering from and there were also asymptomatic cases, which should not be ignored. The mobile teams being deployed from June 25 would specifically concentrate in areas that were once containment zones or from where a good number of patients tested positive for the pandemic in the past. He said the mobile units would operate in outlying regions of Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam from June 26. Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said as per the decisions taken by the government, private medical colleges were also associated in the work to test asymptomatic cases and also to have separate blocks called Covid Care Centres in the private colleges.
