Mumbai has recorded 45 per cent of covid-19 deaths occurred across Maharashtra in the last nine days. As per the data, 33 deaths took place in the state in the last nine days (between September 1 to 9), of which 15 are from Mumbai. Officials have raised concerns over regular deaths being reported in the city.
“Due to the acquired immunity from previous infections and vaccination, the severity of the infection is less. We have hardly witnessed deaths among younger groups. Patients, especially the elderly with health issues like diabetes and hypertension are more vulnerable to losing their lives,” said Dr Avinash Supe, in charge of the Covid-19 Death Committee.
“We are occasionally going to see death numbers like this. These deaths are still sparse than what we saw in the earlier waves. Nothing is still alarming. Most of them are senior citizens and people with multiple comorbidities. I have a feeling that the Covid daily cases will come down in the next few days but we will continue to see deaths as it happened in the last few waves,” added Dr Supe.
Senior consultant for internal medicine and infectious diseases at Nanavati Max Super Speciality Hospital, Dr Hemlata Arora said that managing the underlying condition effectively is the first step to preventing deaths. She added that families and physicians must start treatment immediately if such an elderly patient is infected with Covid or flu.
Dr Pradip Awate, State Surveillance Officer said that although the trend is hinting towards plateauing of the curve, they will need two to three more weeks to confirm the epidemiological characteristic of the virus spread.
“Till now, the infection spread is limited to certain districts, mostly cities where the movement of population is higher. This recent surge was mostly dominated by the new variant of Omicron – BA.2.75 and BA.5 — but due to high vaccine coverage, the severity was low and the spread was contained, unlike the third wave,” said Dr Awate.
Dr Manjusha Agarwal, senior consultant for internal medicine at Global Hospital, said in the last two years, it has been seen that senior citizens with co-morbidities are more likely to get secondary pneumonia, cardiac failure, and severe weakness due to Covid. The doctor said that vaccination with a booster dose is important for seniors.
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