India registered a 28-fold increase in Covid cases over the past fortnight, but there are indications from the national capital that, at current levels, the number of hospitalizations is much lower than it did during the peak of the second wave last April . year according to senior government officials.
A senior official said the daily number of cases in Delhi last April stood at around 20,000, which corresponds to the latest number, with the level of hospitalizations being “about one-fourth to one-fifth” of that month.
“With the same number of cases in Delhi, let’s say in April, and the number of cases we have now, around 20,000 cases per day, the level of hospitalization is about one-fourth to one-fifth. And the level of admission in ICU is even less. So it is definitely a quarter to a fifth of what was in the second wave,” the official said.
Last year, the daily count in Delhi crossed 20,000 cases on April 17, and was 28,395 on April 20 and 22,933 on April 25. On Sunday, the number of cases in the capital stood at 22,751, up from 19,166 on Monday. On December 27, 2021, the number of infected in India was 6,358, which increased to 1.79 lakh on January 9.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) revised its testing criteria to facilitate early detection of symptomatic cases. It recommended that asymptomatic persons in community setting, persons with inter-state domestic travel and contacts of patients, unless identified as high risk on the basis of age or comorbidities, do not require COVID testing. However, it specifies that the advice is “general in nature and may be modified at the discretion of the state health authorities”.
According to government officials, the case-count peak will cross the 4 lakh mark this time – it had reached a daily peak of 4.14 lakh on May 6, 2021 – but the government is prepared to handle the rising number with increasing hospital beds. Is. oxygen supply.
As of January 8, the infection appears to have spread rapidly across India. The number of districts reporting more than 5 per cent weekly case positivity rate has increased from 21 in the week ended December 25, 2021 to 202 in the week ended January 8 – a 10-fold increase in two weeks.
While Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Noida and Gurgaon are among the cities of concern, 13 states and union territories have at least 40 districts where positivity is more than 5 per cent and those reported 10 times Is. Increase in positivity. These districts are in Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Assam, MP and UP.
Meanwhile, the ICMR also recommended that as per the policy there is no need to test the patients discharged from the COVID facility. It said the new advisory is also for early detection of infection in the elderly and persons with co-morbidities.
In a community setting, the ICMR recommended four categories for testing: symptomatic individuals; at-risk contacts of laboratory-confirmed cases; persons traveling internationally; and international travelers visiting India. It said people who experience at least one of the six symptoms – cough, fever, sore throat, loss of taste and/or smell, breathlessness, and/or other respiratory symptoms – should be tested .
The council also listed at-risk contacts in two categories: those over 60 years of age, and those with comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic lung or kidney disease, malignancy and obesity.
In a hospital setting, it recommended testing according to doctor’s advice with three things: no emergency procedure should be delayed for lack of testing; Patients should not be referred to other facilities due to lack of testing set-up; Asymptomatic patients undergoing surgical or non-surgical invasive procedures, including pregnant women hospitalized for delivery, should not be tested unless absolutely necessary.
It further recommended that admitted patients cannot be tested more than once in a week.
A senior health ministry official said that “consistent evidence suggests”. omicron Variant development advantage delta version With a doubling time of 2-3 days and a rapid increase in the incidence of cases has been observed in many countries”.
The official said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has informed that the more infectious Omicron variant causes less severe disease than the globally dominant delta strain, but should not be classified as “mild”.
As per the available data, 28.79 lakh cases were reported globally on January 7 this year, which is the highest ever since the start of the pandemic in January 2020.
About 62 per cent of cases in the week ending January 7 – six out of 10 – were the US (31.1%), France (10.3%), UK (8.4%), Italy (6.4%) and Spain (5.8%), collected by the health ministry According to the figures.
Officials said India has been monitoring Omicron since November 27, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi High level review meeting. He said that since then, the ministries of health, home, civil aviation and railways have been coordinating with the states on the response.
So far 4,033 cases of Omicron have been reported in India. Maharashtra leads the table with 1,216 cases, followed by Rajasthan (529) and Delhi (513). There are 2,480 active Omicron cases, while 1,552 are classified as cured. There has been only one death so far.
Officials said that while 67 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated and 92 per cent received a single dose, it is important to wear an N-95 mask. About 31 percent of teens between the ages of 15 and 18 have been vaccinated in one week.
Officials also cited a study showing that a person without a mask can become infected within 15 minutes, while with an N-95 mask it can take around 25 hours.
Officials said the government is fully prepared to deal with the situation, as it has invested over Rs 23,000 crore on upgradation of medical infrastructure: ICU beds, oxygen supply, pediatric beds, ambulances, field hospitals, Medicines and diagnostics, among other tools.
,