People succumbing to COVID-19 not showing signs of downward trend in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Cases of new Covid-19 infection may have gone down in the national capital but the count of per day people succumbing to the virus has not shown signs of downward trend.

Around 10 days ago on May 8, Delhi saw more than 17,000 cases of corona while the fatality count was 332. On Tuesday, new cases came down to 4482, however the count of patients dying remained at 265.

Hospitals claim, though the pressure has gone down yet there is a load of new critical patients and a combination of such cases along with those previously infected and failed to overcome the deteriorating health condition in the past two weeks or more.

“Some patients are still coming with conditions being extremely critical, they are failing to overcome the phase and succumbing. And there are patients who have been admitted past 10 days or two weeks or before that were kept in ICU or ventilation but couldn’t survive. But the good part is that the count of critical patients per day has gone down to a large extent. While we were seeing 100 such people earlier now it has come down to 40 patients,” said Dr Suresh Kumar, Medical Director, Lok Nayak Hospital.

Another official from the state run facility also expressed similar views. “The pressure has indeed come down in the last five or six days however the load continues for attending ICU and ventilator patients. Most of them who are undergoing treatment in these wards have been admitted when cases were high,” added the official.

“We get the sickest of patients and if u see overall survival among them then we are at par with the best in the world,” said an official from AIIMS when asked about the fatality situation in Covid wards.

Dr Lalit Kant, former Scientist ‘G’ and Head (Epidemiology and. Communicable Diseases Division), ICMR said that the fatality count will see a drop in Delhi after more than two weeks.

“From the first week of June, the digits will come down. Severity of a case takes around 10 days or two weeks to develop. Infections were high even till the second week of May. So the deaths are happening which were diagnosed then,” he stated.

The national capital broke its record for highest ever single-day Covid death toll in the city by reporting 448 deaths on May 4. So far, 22,111 people have succumbed to the viral disease since the pandemic struck last year, taking the mortality rate to 1.58 per cent.