Pune city’s Covid-19 case fatality rate drops to 2.53%

In the ten-day lockdown period between July 14 and July 23, the case fatality rate in the city dropped to 1.6 per cent, according to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) data

As per the Maharashtra government’s Medical Education and Drugs Department, as of July 24, the city’s case fatality rate stood at 2.53 per cent while the state’s average stood at 3.70 per cent. In Mumbai, the case fatality rate was recorded at 5.59 per cent, Thane at 3.49 per cent, Solapur at 8.04 per cent.

Health workers of Pune district council gears up before collecting swab samples to test for COVID-19 infection at BJS hostel, in Wagholi. (Pratham Gokhale/HT Photo)

According to officials the case fatality rate graph has been witnessing a dip since the past four weeks.

In the ten-day lockdown period between July 14 and July 23, the case fatality rate in the city dropped to 1.6 per cent, according to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) data.

Between June 25 and July 1, the case fatality rate was reported to be at 2.6 per cent with 117 deaths reported which further dropped to 1.8 per cent in the following week from July 2 to July 8. In this period 103 deaths were reported. The case fatality rate rose to 1.9 per cent between July 9 and July 15 with 119 deaths reported during this period and then further down to 1.4 per cent from July 16 to July 21 July with 146 deaths.

Rubal Agarwal, additional municipal commissioner, PMC, said, “If the positive cases have increased then proportionately the number of deaths reported would have also gone up, but that did not happen.”

“Pune is conducting the highest number of tests than any other cities in the country which is helping in early detection. We have added on to the oxygen beds, ventilators and ICU units too,” she said.

“By next week we will add another 600 oxygen beds at our Covid care centres. We are focusing on the 20% of the active cases who are symptomatic, once we can treat them then the problem is dealt with,” she said.

According to civic officials, health care infrastructure also plays a vital role to bring down the case fatality rate.

As per the divisional commissioner’s dashboard as of Saturday evening, out of the 3,045 allocated isolation beds with oxygen, 755 are vacant and of the 528 allocated beds for ICU without ventilators, 141 are vacant and of the 433 ICU beds with ventilator 42 are vacant.