Pune’s Covid positivity rate goes above 20%, CFR at 0.01% and less

Although cases are rising, pushing Pune’s Covid positivity rate at more than 20%, the case fatalities (CFR) remain at 0.01% and less since the past one week as reported fatalities remain in single digits

Pune: Although the Covid cases are rising, pushing the city’s Covid-19 positivity rate at more than 20%, the case fatalities remain at 0.01% and less since the past one week as the reported fatalities remain in single digits. The number of new Covid cases in the city have risen by 10 times in the past one week as the count from 400 as of January 1 reaches close to 3,460 as of Tuesday (January 11).

Although cases are rising, pushing Pune’s Covid positivity rate at more than 20%, the case fatalities (CFR) remain at 0.01% and less since the past one week as reported fatalities remain in single digits. (HT (PIC FOR REPRESENTATION))

However, with the rate of hospitalisation rising slowly but steadily, it is believed that the bed count could also rise in the coming days. Although the rise in hospitalisations is not as drastic as the number of new cases, the number has witnessed a slight rise in admissions in the past one week.

Since the past one week, as the number of new Covid cases are rising dramatically, the number of reported deaths due to the virus is still in single digits which has kept the case fatality rate of the city at 0.01%, and less. The number of patients who were critical or were on oxygen in the past 11 days since the beginning of the month has gone from 157 to 184.

Dr Ashish Bharti, chief health officer at PMC, said, “As of Tuesday, Pune city has reported about 3,459 new Covid-19 cases of the close to 15,000 samples that have been tested in the last 24 hours. This means that the positivity rate in the city has gone up to 23%, however, we have reported only one death in the past 24 hours which means that the case fatality rate (CFR) due to Covid has been around 0.0% in the past one week. As of Tuesday, we have over 19,452 active cases in the city of which only 4.89% are admitted in hospitals in comparison with the total active cases.”

As per the civic body, out of the over 19,000 active cases, 146 are on oxygen treatment, 16 are on non-invasive ventilators and 22 are on invasive ventilators. As of January 1, when the city had about 2,070 active cases, out of this, 92 were critical patients and 65 were on oxygen support. At the beginning of the month, the positivity rate of the city was around 5.2% and the CFR was 0.01%. A steady rise in the number of patients hospitalised could add load on the already exhausted health infrastructure, said Dr Bharti.