Nagpur: The number of Covid-19 deaths reached 4,000 in the district on Friday. The district’s case fatality rate (CFR) is high compared with average of state and country.
The district registered seven fatalities on Friday taking the toll to 4,000. Of these, 2,667 (66.68%) were residents of the city, 707 (17.67%) from rural parts of the district while 626 (15.65%) were from outside.
Total number of positive cases were 1,27,110 so district’s CFR comes to 3.15%. Average CFR of state is 2.55% and of India 1.45% as on Friday. If deceased from other districts are excluded, CFR will be 2.67% (3,374 deaths against 1,26,302 positive cases) which too is higher than average of state and country.
Patients come to Nagpr for treatment from all districts of Vidarbha and a few districts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In all 626 such patients tested positive for novel coronavirus here and died here during treatment in the government and private hospitals situated. Therefore, these deaths are counted in the district’s toll.
The district is fourth in the state to touch 4,000 deaths after Mumbai (11,162), Pune (7,805) and Thane (5,619). The population of the district is less than that of Nashik district. However, the fatalities are much higher here compared with Nashik district (1,931).
The district had registered first positive case on March 11. First death was recorded on April 5. Number of deaths crossed 100 on July 29. At that time, the district was on 12th among 35 in the state.
Discrepancies in the data of district provided daily by the office of District Civil Surgeon (CS) and that of state’s public health department (PHD) have continued. As per PHD, total number of deaths in the district was 3,249 on Thursday which is 751 less than Civil Surgeon’s figures.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr Nitin Shinde told TOI, “Deaths have reduced in last three months compared with August and September. A majority of outstation patients are admitted here in critical conditions so the number here seems high. Otherwise, CFR of the district is only slightly higher than average of state.”
He said fatalities will continue to decline in coming days as beds were available and also line of treatment had become clearer. Only worry was that people, especially senior citizens and persons with comorbidities, were still not testing on time and taking treatment. Doing that can further reduce number of deaths.
“Early diagnosis and early treatment are the only ways to curb fatalities. Also, general practitioners and primary care physicians should encourage Covid test for patients as first step if they are having any symptoms,” he said.