Covid-19 centres empty as cases dip in Jammu and Kashmir

Of the total 3,382 beds (excluding ICU) meant for Covid-19 patients in different hospitals of J&K on December 27, some 3,030 are vacant.

Many of the Covid-19 centers in Jammu and Kashmir are emptying out after the active cases in the union territory have reduced to below 3,300, the lowest in the past six months, official data has revealed.

Medical workers take note of a woman’s health history at a coronavirus testing centre in Srinagar.(HT FILE PHOTO)

Of the total 3,382 beds (excluding ICU) meant for Covid-19 patients in different hospitals of J&K on December 27, some 3,030 are vacant – 1,945 in Kashmir and 1,085 in Jammu.

Similarly of the total 284 ICU beds in J&K for severe Covid patients, 219 are vacant while 65 are occupied – 26 in Kashmir and 39 in Jammu. Of the 65 patients in ICU, 45 need no ventilator support.

“We get very less Covid patients now. In our Out Patient Department (OPD) we used to get more than 40 patients every day but now that has reduced to 2-3 cases. Similarly at one time we had 100 patients in Covid centre which has now reduced to less than 10,” said a senior doctor of Government Medical College Baramulla in north Kashmir.

The highest contributing districts Srinagar and Jammu are the only ones where the patients are present in some measure in the main Covid centres.

The total active cases in J&K till December 27 have dropped to 3,282 which account for 3.73 % of the total 1, 20,137 cases. The last time active cases were hovering around 3,200 was in the first week of July after which the cases had shot up.

A total of 1, 14,986 people have recovered from the disease while 1,869 people have lost their lives, some 1.55 percent of the total cases.A total of 1,178 people have succumbed to the disease in Kashmir and 691 in Jammu.

The average cases and deaths have witnessed a significant decrease in December as compared to the past five months. For the past one week the fresh cases have mostly remained below 300 per day.

As many as 175 people lost their lives from December 1 to 27 in the pandemic while the month’s cases so far reached 9,913 (at 367 average cases per day) which are much less than 15,434 Covid infections in November and 19,619 cases in October.

The month of September had recorded the highest number of cases - 37,372 - which was substantially more than the 17,339 infections in August.

Dr Qazi Haroon, officer on special duty with the health department to assist the government with corona mitigation efforts, agreed that most of the Covid centres are empty.

“It is because we have very less Covid patients daily now which are mostly asymptomatic and most of the positive patients are put at home,” he said.

He said that in very rare cases they have to hospitalize the patient. “Mostly patients who have comorbid conditions and whose oxygen saturation levels dip, are hospitalized,” he said.