Mumbai: Despite there being a drop in the number of Covid cases in the city, hospitalisations have risen 23.45 per cent in the last 29 days across Mumbai. Until December 31 last year, 2,374 patients were hospitalised and as on January 28, this number stands at 2,927. Civic and health officials said they had noticed a slight rise in the number of patients coming into the ICU seven days after showing the first symptoms of coronavirus infection. However, Covid taskforce members are urging that the focal points should be symptomatic positivity, rate of hospitalisation, oxygen and ventilator requirement.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said cases in Mumbai had started to plateau and the number of critical patients too had been dropping in the last few days. But civic authorities were continuing to be vigilant as they expected increased hospitalisation in the future with more people getting mild symptoms and needing to be hospitalised. “Though cases have come down, we have directed all our medical officers to continue with testing and tracing. Even in the last two waves, it was only later that hospitalisations had increased and people faced difficulties in getting beds. But in the third wave, we are getting more ICU patients who have progressed from mild to severe symptoms, which is still a matter of concern,” he said.
Kakani said, most patients coming to the hospital had fever for a day or two and thought that the infection was over, but were presenting with hypoxia or low oxygen levels in the blood.
Experts from the civic health department have said the rate at which people were getting hospitalised and the percentage of people in the ICU will actually determine whether the third wave is declining. “In the third wave, it has been observed that many having symptoms are not testing or asymptomatic and unaware. In such a scenario, a low test-positivity rate cannot help us decide if the third wave is on a decline in the city,” according to an expert.
Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the state Covid-19 taskforce said, “As Omicron is highly contagious, we have changed our approach to focus on four parameters — deaths, hospitalisation, oxygen and ventilators. We have to focus on symptomatic management of patients and identify people at risk, who are vulnerable to severe disease and death. Moreover, so far 75 per cent of daily cases are of Omicron, which clearly shows it has spread in the community,” he said.
