Just 5% of patients critical, only 2% needed ventilator

Gurgaon: The city added another 230 patients on Sunday, taking the number of Covid-19 cases to 1,922. Of them, 1,467 are active. Two things have ensured the situation did not get out of hand — there are very few serious cases and most patients are young.
“Only 2% of the patients have needed ventilator support so far and just 3% have needed oxygen,” a senior health official said. And this is from the 10% who even displayed symptoms. In Gurgaon, 90% of the patients have been asymptomatic.
Those who test positive but don’t have symptoms have been asked to isolate themselves at home. “We are advising people to stay in isolation at home and constantly monitoring them,” the official added.
Of the 1,692 Covid-19 patients till Saturday, half (850) had been asked to stay in home isolation. Another 169 were in paid isolation centres and 12 in quarantine facilities. Only 19.5% of the patients, 330, were hospitalised.
“We have 3,399 beds in the district right now. We have very few critical patients, which has been fortunate,” said Vivek Kalia, estate officer at HSVP-II, in charge of monitoring the availab-ility of beds and ventilators in Gurgaon.
The other thing that has helped has been the patient profile. More than half of those who have tested positive so far have been in their 20s (460 patients, accounting for 27.2% of all cases) and 30s (452 patients, making up 26.7%). In fact, only 172 of the city’s 1,692 patients (till Saturday) were older than 60 — that’s just 10%. The number is close to that of those younger than 20, with 174 patients. Those in their 40s accounted for 16% of the cases, with 262 patients.
“Younger patients recover faster and have fewer comorbidities (health conditions that exacerbate or make a person vulnerable to Covid-19 infection),” the health official said.
Till Sunday, 451 patients had been discharged in Gurgaon. That’s a recovery rate of 23.4%. But it’s much lower than the state’s 53.9% and the country’s 48.4%, primarily because most cases have only just been reported. In the past five days, Gurgaon has added more than 700 cases.
Standard recovery period is about a fortnight, which is all about management of symptoms since there is no known cure for the infection right now.
3 deaths in Faridabad
On Sunday, three Covid-19 patients died in Faridabad. With this, the district has had 13 deaths, just under half of Haryana’s 28 deaths. Gurgaon accounts for four. The state also recorded its highest single-day jump, with 496 cases.