Gurgaon: The number of critical
Covid patients in the city seems to be going up, if the rate of occupancy of
ICU beds is anything to go by. Data from the health department shows that the
ICU bed occupancy has gone up by nearly threefold compared to March 1 due to a rise in new cases being reported daily. The department is now planning to increase hospital beds dedicated for Covid patients, which is 35% of the city’s total capacity at present, to 50%.
The city has 369 ICU beds reserved for Covid patients, out of which 41 are currently occupied. On March 1, 15 ICU beds were occupied. Gurgaon has 2,650 hospital beds reserved for Covid patients, out of which 185 are occupied at the moment, while 103 were occupied on March 1.
With 269 fresh cases, the city witnessed the highest single-day spike of daily cases so far this year on Friday, taking its tally to 61,727. On Thursday, the city had reported 256 cases. The health department said 169 patients recovered on the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 59,926. The recovery rate stands at 98.1%. One person died of the
infection. So far, 363 people in the city have died of Covid, of whom 279 had comorbidities.
As of Friday, the city had 1,438 active cases. In the past 24 hours, the health authorities collected 5,021 samples for antigen and RT-PCR tests. The health department has started conducting over 5,000 tests daily to isolate and treat patients at the earliest.
“We have informed private hospitals that we will increase the reserved beds for Covid patients in the first week of April by 50%. We are expecting the number of deaths to also increase in the first week of April. The peak spike will continue for next three to four weeks,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.
He also pointed out that a majority of patients have reported symptoms like gastrointestinal issues and mild fever. “We have not received patients with severe respiratory or multiple organ failure yet during the present surge. The rate of infection, however, is very high, which is a big concern,” said Yadav.
Meanwhile, doctors at several hospitals treating Covid patients too said the nature of the infection in this wave is not very severe, but it is more infectious compared to the previous surges. Dr Shiba Kalyan Biswal, consultant (pulmonary and sleep medicine) at Narayana Hospital, said, “Although the new variant spreads faster than the earlier one, its severity is comparatively lesser. Covid-appropriate behaviour is the key.”
“The R-naught value (rate of infection spread) is at an 11-month high at present at 1.32%. This means that one Covid patient can infect 1.3 persons. This transmission rate of infection is very high but severity is low,” Dr Sandeep Budhiraja, group medical director, Max Healthcare, said.