Critical care occupancy goes up in dist

Thiruvananthapuram: While active cases in the district are dropping primarily due to the new discharge criteria, the occupancy rates in Medical College Hospital (MCH), Covid second-line treatment centres (CSLTCs) and Covid hospitals have not shown any dip so far. The weekly admission to MCH increased from 303 in the final week of April to 702 by the second week of May.
The admission rates in CSLTCs rose from 314 in the first week of May to 587 by the second week.
As for Covid hospitals, the occupancy peaked from 1,833 in the final week of April to 3,581, nearly double the number, by Thursday. The district has been mostly under lockdown and triple lockdown since May 4 and there has been no respite in admission rates in major Covid hospitals.
The patient load under Category B and Category C has equally been alarming. The patient load under Category B, which was 145 in the first week of April, now stands at 2,606. This is the compiled figure of patients admitted in Covid hospitals, CSLTCs and private hospitals. ICU occupancy has more than doubled in the district in less than a month.
There has also been no respite in rural panchayats. As on Friday, two panchayats recorded weekly TPR of above 50% while 11 local bodies recorded TPR of above 40%. Ottasekharamangalam panchayat recorded 53.37% TPR on Friday and Vilavoorkal panchayat also crossed TPR above 50%. Both these panchayats are in Kattakada taluk. Panchayats like Nagaroor, which had begun to show a slight decline, is also reporting new cases. So far 87 Covid positive cases have been reported here.
Karumkulam panchayat, which has been a major hotspot in the first wave, is also falling prey to second wave. Over 100 patients are under treatment here. One major concern for the local body members and the health team is the test reluctance, which severely affects contact tracing and isolation. A ward member said that while the health team came with over 300 testing kits, only eight persons turned up for testing. “They are very reluctant to come for testing. Either they stay at home or depend on some nearby private hospitals. They do not figure in our list of monitoring and chances of transmission are high,” said a local body member. Only eight per cent of ICU beds are vacant in government sector and as for ventilators, the vacancy is just 11%. The district recorded 3,300 Covid positive cases on Saturday. Active cases have come down to 20,695. A total of 3,110 persons got infected through local contact. As many as 7,370 persons completed observation period without showing any symptoms.