Pune district so far has recorded more than 4.41 lakh confirmed infections, of which over 26,000 cases are currently active, according to the state data. (File) While the death rates in Pune are still low compared to last year, it has started to show an increasing trend in the last couple of weeks, leading to major worry in the civic administration.
In the last two weeks, the Pune Municipal Corporation areas have reported 97 coronavirus-related deaths, compared to 91 in the entire one month prior to that.
The PMC had witnessed a peak in September last year, after which the number of deaths had progressively declined until the first week of February. In fact, on February 6, no deaths were reported from Pune for the first time in ten months. The city had recorded 4,774 deaths till then, with an overall mortality rate of 2.47 per cent.
However, there has been a rapid rise in cases after that. Pune district has been reporting more than 3,200 new cases a day, more than half of which, over 1,700 cases, are coming from PMC areas. Its impact on the deaths are starting to become evident only now. Between March 1 and March 14, PMC areas reported 97 deaths. In the entire month of February, this number was only 91.
The increase in the daily case count has led to a rise in the active cases as well. That in case has pushed up the demand for critical care facilities in hospitals. The number of critical patients and those in need of oxygen has gone up in the last few days, with the first few cases of patients struggling to find suitable hospital beds coming to light.
The PMC has urged the private hospitals to increase the bed capacity for treatment of Covid-19 patients as the government as well as civic hospitals are likely to fall short to accommodate patients in need of hospitalisation. The state government has also initiated the process of restarting the jumbo Covid19 treatment facility at the CoEP ground in Shivajinagar.
On February 6 when the active case count had dropped to around 1,400, there were 112 critical patients and 212 seeking oxygen treatment. Now, 355 patients are in critical care while another 765 patients are on oxygen support in hospitals across the city as on March 14, with active cases count at 11,590.
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Mayor Murlidhar Mohol recently said that there was no shortage of beds for treatment of Covid19 patients as of now but the citizens have to be careful and behave responsibly to contain the spread of Covid19.
The PMC has also got tough on those violating the guidelines laid to check the spread of Covid19 and the civic administration has intensified action against them.