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It is common knowledge now that Omicron spreads faster than other COVID variants. But how fast does it actually transmit? To answer that Karnataka health minister Dr Sudhakar K shared data on case doubling rates of all three waves that showed while the number of infections doubled in around 8 to 10 days (on an average) during the first 2 waves, the same is happening in a matter of 3 days in the current wave.
As per the data that he shared, during the 1 st wave, from 442 cases, it became 982 in just 2 days, but after that, the doubling rate slowed down. It became 1839 in 7 days, then 3693 in 13 days, and 7385 in 33 days.
During the second wave, meanwhile, the cases were doubling in a gap of 8 to 10 days. From 349, it became 760 in 10 days, 1587 in 9 days, then 3087 in another 9 days.
However, in the current wave, the case doubling rate is much faster. In 3 days, the number of cases increased from 289 to 707, then in another 5 days, it became 2479, then 5031 in another 2 days and 12000 in next 3 days.
See data here:
However, the minister further pointed out even though the cases are increasing much faster this time, the rate of hospitalisation is significantly low. As per the data, during the third week of April last year, when the second COVID wave peaked, the hospitalisation rate was at 30%, in May it stood at 22%. Compared to that, in the current COVID wave, the hospitalisation rate is just 6% and over 93% of patients are recovering in home isolation.
However, owing to the rapid rise in cases, the minister pointed out, the health minister asserted, that there is no reason for complacency, please follow COVID-appropriate behaviour and stay safe.
See data here:
Karnataka on Thursday reported 25,005 new cases of COVID-19, out of which 18,374 infections were logged from Bengaluru alone. With today's count, the positivity rate in the city jumped to 20%. The city on Wednesday reported over 15,000 cases.
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