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Amid rising covid-19 cases, state sees dip in fatality rate
In what is a huge relief, the last 10 days from July 24 have seen the addition of 3,417 cases and 61 deaths, with the mortality rate dipping to 1.7%.
Chandigarh Even as the number of covid-19 cases in the state continue to spike over the past month, its Case Fatality Rate (CFR), or the number of patients who actually died because of disease, has reduced from 3% in June-end to 2.3% on July 24, when 282 deaths were reported from 12,216 cases. The past month has seen 6,608 fresh infections, with 133 deaths among these, giving a CFR, or mortality rate, of just above 2%.
In what is a huge relief, the last 10 days from July 24 have seen the addition of 3,417 cases and 61 deaths, with the mortality rate dipping to 1.7%. This stretch of time has also been when the spurt in patients has been almost double of that recorded in June.
Even as the national mortality rate has also seen a decline from 3% to 2.5%, the decline in the state’s ratio has come as a huge relief as the health department has been concerned about it. High mortality rate has remained a big concern for Punjab during this pandemic. At one point of time, the state’s mortality rate was more than double the national average. The Punjab government had also formed a team of experts, headed by former PGIMR director Dr KK Talwar, to find out the reasons behind the high mortality rate.
“If you see media bulletins, you must have noticed that in the past ten days, daily 400-plus cases are being detected but the number of deaths has decreased. This is the result of health department efforts. We are conducting an audit of every death. Twice a week, our medical experts are interacting with each other on webinars on how to decrease the death ratio,” Punjab’s nodal officer for covid-19, Dr Rajesh Bhaskar said.
“Though we have been following national protocol in the treatment of patients, but we have decided to directly admit patients with co-morbid diseases into Government Medical Colleges,” he added.
‘EARLY DETECTION REMAINS KEY’
Health experts dealing with the crisis claimed that the increase in testing in Punjab has led to the early detection of the infection, which is the biggest factor in controlling death rate.
“Early detection of the infection is the key in curing a person of this virus. With an increase in testing, we are catching the infections at an early stage. This provides us ample time to treat patients,” Dr Bhaskar said, adding that the department had launched a special campaign to create awareness among persons on reporting to government facilities in case of mild symptoms or after coming into contact with any positive patient.
