South West Khasi Hills has been the least-affected district in Meghalaya in terms of absolute numbers of Covid-19 infections, but the numbers have ballooned drastically in April and May when compared to the 12 months prior.
Until March 31, that is one full year since the pandemic hit Meghalaya, SWKH had only recorded 57 infections and had largely dodged the Covid bullet.
However, the rural district perched above the plains of Bangladesh has since added 247, which is an increase of 433 percent, to put it on 304 cases in total, which is 5.33 times the number it had on March 31.
By these measures, SWKH is the worst-affected district in the state. It also has the fewest beds allotted for the care of Covid-positive patients – just six – and these have been set up at a temporary facility.
Other districts to have been hit hard by the second wave are South West Garo Hills (552 case increase or 276 percent), West Khasi Hills (436 or 242 percent), North Garo Hills (250 or 208 percent) and West Jaintia Hills (1,115 or 206 percent).
Still, these districts make up a small proportion of the 18,230 new coronavirus cases recorded in the state since March 31. The majority of these have been reported from East Khasi Hills (11,001 increase or 126 percent), with a sizeable chunk coming from Ri-Bhoi (2,278 or 163 percent) and West Garo Hills (1,212 or 70 percent).
WGH and East Garo Hills (227 or 67 percent) are the only two districts to have seen an increase in cases of under 100 percent.
