The hospitalisation rate during the third surge in Covid cases fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant has been significantly lower than during the second wave last year when the Delta variant caused severe respiratory issues in many patients leading to the healthcare infrastructure being challenged to its limits, the government said today. The number of deaths due to the viral infection is also significantly less in the third wave of Coronavirus in comparison to the second wave, the Health Secretary added.
Using a graph of positivity rate mapped against Covid beds occupied in hospitals during the second and third surges in Delhi, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan demonstrated that the current surge has been less severe.
The graph displayed by the Health Secretary at the press conference today.
Comparison of key indices during the second and third surges shows that the mortality rate is significantly lesser and the vaccinated population is much larger. Vaccines are effective and disease severity for vaccinated individuals is much lower, Mr Bhushan said.
Even though the hospitalisation rate is low this time as compared to the second wave, there has been a slight uptick in hospitalisation though the number of new cases has seen a downward trend. NDTV analysed the hospitalisation data between January 11 and January 17, it was seen that Mumbai and Delhi saw an uptick in the number of people needing hospital care even as new cases kept falling for seven days consecutively.
Delhi saw a rise from 2.88 per cent to 3.19 per cent in hospitalisation. The city had recorded over 19,000 cases on January 11 and yesterday's spike was relatively lower at 13,785 new cases.
On symptoms in the current surge, Mr Bhushan said that around 99 per cent of adult Covid patients in Delhi have common symptoms of fever (with it without rigors), cough and irritation in the throat. These symptoms usually settle down after the fifth day. Muscular weakness and tiredness are other symptoms.
In patients from 11 to 18 years of age, fever along with upper respiratory tract infection is a common symptom, he added.
During the second wave, on April 30 last year, there were 3,86,452 new cases, 3,059 deaths, and 31,70,228 active cases. The proportion of fully vaccinated people was just two per cent.
While today, there are 3,17,532 new cases, 380 deaths and 19,24,051 active cases. 72 per cent of the people have been fully vaccinated now.
Data shows that there was a constant rise in deaths from April 1 to April 30 last year. In contrast, deaths from January 1 to January 20 are significantly lower.
The government said that 94 per cent of India's adults have been administered the first dose of the Covid vaccine, while 72 per cent are fully vaccinated.
For the 15-18 years age group, the government said 52 per cent have received their first dose of the Covid vaccine.
Eleven states and union territories have more than 50,000 active Covid cases and 515 districts are reporting a weekly case positivity of over five per cent, it said.
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