Despite Covid surge, Mumbai sees less deaths

Though there has been a huge spurt in the Covid cases across Mumbai, the fatality rate remained below one per cent in the last 12 days as compared to the city’s overall case fatality rate (CFR), which is 1.80 per cent. Health experts have attributed this drop to the reduction in the severity of infections due to which there are minimal deaths. Moreover, so far, a mild Omicron variant has been detected in the state, which doesn’t have much impact on one's health.

According to the data analysed by the FPJ, a total of 4,917 people were infected with Covid, of which 4 died between May 20 and May 31, which translates into a CFR of 0.08 per cent. On the other hand, the CFR between June 1 and June 12 dropped to 0.04 per cent when there were 22,410 patients and 10 out of them had died.

Terming the low CFR as a “good sign”, state Covid death audit committee head

Dr Avinash Supe said there was nothing new in the death audit report as very less deaths have occurred in the last four months. However, since the pandemic began, most of those who died in the city had comorbidities or had delayed treatment. Now, the number of cases and deaths have come down drastically and only associated patients (with comorbidities) are turning positive. Moreover, the fatalities are incidental deaths.

“The upper respiratory tract is more infected in the third wave but in some cases, the lungs are not involved as the patients were immunocompromised, due to which they succumbed. In the last four months few deaths have occurred as most of them are fully vaccinated. But, a small pool of deaths is likely to be there, and senior citizens will account for the lion's share because of comorbidities,” he explained.

Expecting a sudden spurt, which in turn, would lead to hospitalisation, senior health experts said there is a need of monitoring cases and deaths closely for the next two-three weeks.

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Published on: Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 07:00 AM IST