Covid patients in hospitals down 50%

Gurgaon: The number of patients admitted in dedicated Covid hospitals and Covid health centres in the city has reduced by nearly 50% in the past nine days.
While the number has gone down from 53 on July 1 to 27 on July 9 in hospitals, during the same period, it has dropped from 325 to 164 in the health centres set up by the district administration.
A major factor that has contributed to the drop in bed occupancy is the reduced number of critically ill patients.
“The average number of cases is now about 130 every day, which was higher before mid-June, at more than 150. We witnessed more critical patients between May 15 and June 15 and are now getting fewer of those cases,” said Dr Naveen Kumar, a physician at Civil Hospital.
Compared to the previous two months, symptomatic Covid patients are now spending less time in Covid hospitals and health centres and the average duration of their stay has come down. This is partly owing to the fact that patients are now being discharged when they are clinically stable, said Dr Sushila Kataria, director and head, department of medicine, Medanta hospital. Earlier, they were released only after a double negative RT-PCR report. The rule was later waived.
“We are now discharging people when we find them clinically stable. If the patients become clinically stable after the treatment, we discharge them and ask them to be in home isolation for seven days,” Dr Kataria said.
A patient is generally considered ‘clinically stable’ when his or her vital signs — heart rate, systolic blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and temperature — are normal.
Gurgaon’s recovery rate has also picked up, improving from 77% last week to 83% as of Thursday, which is the best in the country. Out of a total of 6,578 cases, 5,507 patients have recovered. Its active cases have dropped below 1,000, to 968. On Thursday, the number of recoveries, 130, was higher than that of new cases, which was 111.
Doctors said that there is no one particular medicine they are using to treat severe cases of Covid-19. While some patients are given Remdesivir, others are treated with Tocilizumab. In some cases, plasma therapy has also been used. Four months of the pandemic has given them new insights into the line of treatment that each patient may require, doctors said.
“Earlier, we used to give Tocilizumab to a patient after he or she became critical, but this is not the case anymore. We are wiser now. We now administer it at an early stage if needed. Our understanding of the disease and the treatment has significantly improved,” said Dr Kataria.
People now have an increased awareness about Covid and are taking precautions, doctors said, adding that it may have helped in keeping the numbers lower.
“We have seen in other countries that the cases started decreasing after three months. People have seen the severity of the disease and are more careful. This might have brought down the cases and as a result, we are seeing less hospitalisation now,” said Dr Kataria.