The District Development Commissioner (DDC) Budgam, Shahbaz Ahmed Mirza today said that till date about 15,379 cases have been reported positive in the district, out of which 13067 have recovered.The DDC while talking to media persons during Press briefing said that presently there are 843 active positive cases in the district, most of the cases are under home isolation and just 20 patients are admitted in Covid care hospital Level II.He said the recovery rate has reached 95 percent and the positivity rate has come down gradually. Since last week the positivity rate has remained stagnant in between 4 to 4.3 percent and from the last 2 days it has further gone down and is presently at 2.44 percent, he added.The DDC said that the situation has improved enormously with regard to all parameters as since the last 5 days there is no report of any death due to this pandemic.He informed that there are 120 containment zones all across the district and the number of positive cases from these containment zones has also gone down.Vaccination drive has received enormous response and cooperation by the public, at present 79 percent of the population above 45 years age in the district has been vaccinated with the hope that the remaining age group of the population shall be vaccinated completely by the end of this month.40,000 people between 18 to 44 year age group have also been vaccinated in the district so far, he added.Mobile teams have been put in place to carry vaccination drive across the district.Testing for Covid-19 has been ramped up and on a daily basis 2500 tests are carried out including both RAT and RTPCR procedure. Public in rural areas are availing facility of Test sampling at recently set up covid care centers at all 296 panchayats of District.The DC once again appealed to the general public that the danger is not averted yet, it is still looming around, and the need is to remain more vigilant, follow SOPs and guidelines and other precautions.Readers can also find this news item on official Facebook Page and Twitter Handle of District Information Centre Budgam: Facebook.com/dicbudgam; Twitter.com/dicbudgam