Nagpur: After September peak, the Covid relief continued in December but the pace of reduction in new cases has slowed down. October and November recorded almost 50% reduction in new cases as compared to the respective previous month. But there was not a huge difference in December’s and November’s tally. The number of recoveries and deaths were reduced significantly. The major parameters like recovery rate, hospitalization ratio, sample positivity rate etc suggest that the Covid-19 curve is moving towards plateau.
December respite has a special significance because it has come despite Diwali rush in November followed by holidays in December. People are enjoying outings, community gatherings, travels, and social life has resumed with the new normal. Still, the cases and deaths are reducing which suggest either we have adopted the physical distancing, hand hygiene and masks as our day-to-day habits or most of us have already developed antibodies, said experts.
The most important factor during Covid-19 is the recovery rate. It has always been good in Vidarbha. Even during the September peak, the recovery rate was more than 66%. December began with 92% recovery rate. It showed slow but constant improvement and reached up to 95% by December 31. Now, Vidarbha’s recovery rate is more than Maharashtra’s average and closer to national average which is near 96%.
Apart from this, the number of patients hospitalized and needing ICU or HDU facility is a strong indicator of severity of Covid-19 spread. During September, more than 30,000 patients were admitted in hospitals and about 5% of them were in ICU. This number was more than 20% of the total cases reported by then. On December 31, total 11 districts in Vidarbha have 6,851 patients under treatment. Out of these, 65% patients are in home isolation. This suggests hospitality rate is very low and beds are available in hospitals.
Anticipating the post Diwali surge, administration had increased testing. Tests were almost doubled, especially in rural areas because experts had predicted that more cases may come from rural areas post Diwali due to community movement from urban to rural parts during festival. Despite more tests, cases were low during Diwali incubation period (up to December 4) and even after that. As per a rough estimate, more than 20 lakh samples have been tested in Vidarbha so far. About 4 lakh samples were tested in December alone. Out of them, 25,000-odd tested positive which means, samples positivity rate is in single digit which is ideal as per WHO.
The case fatality rate was nearing 3% during peak of September. It has now reduced to 2.6%. This is still higher than national average which is 1.45%. This means, Vidarbha needs to achieve a lot in curbing deaths.