Notwithstanding the surge in COVID-19 cases in the State during the last few days, the case fatality rate (CFR) has dipped from 0.7% during the last 15 days to 0.3% during the last 5 days.
Karnataka State COVID-19 War Room, while sharing the data from its performance review dated March 15, 2021, pointed out that a total of 5,868 cases had been reported in the last seven days across the State, while number of COVID-19 deaths during the period was 28. CFR here denotes the proportion of people dying from COVID-19 out of all the individuals testing positive during a certain period of time.
While Bengaluru Urban accounted for the maximum 20 deaths during the seven-day period, Mysuru and Dharwad districts accounted for two deaths each. One person each had died Dakshina Kannada, Kalaburagi, Tumakuru and Bidar due to COVID-19, but as many as 23 districts in the State reported no deaths during the period.
Positivity rate
While a total of 4.92 lakh tests including 2.58 lakh in Bengaluru Urban were conducted across the State in the last seven days, the positivity rate stood at 1.1%.
However, this varied from one district to another with Kalaburagi and Bidar showing a high rate of 1.8%, followed by Mysuru and Tumakuru with 1.6%, and Bengaluru Urban and Dakshina Kannada’s 1.3%. The lowest was reported from Haveri and Koppal, which had reported only 2 and 9 cases, respectively, in the last seven days. Meanwhile, amid the surge, the number of active cases in the State too had reached 8,860 on April 15 from a low of 5,501 on February 26.
ICU numbers
The media bulletin issued by Department of Health and Family Welfare did not show any corresponding rise in the number of active cases admitted to ICU. The number of active cases admitted to ICU had marginally risen from 118 on March 1 to 125 on March 15.
But, Giridhar Babu, an epidemiologist at Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Bengaluru, who is also a member of the Karnataka COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee, said the data needs to be looked at carefully in the backdrop of the discontinuation of government quota beds in private hospitals. “You will come to know of ICU admission only if the patients come to government hospitals,” he said.
Pointing out that the number of people, particularly the elderly with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), seeking admission to ICU had increased in the last two weeks, Dr. Babu said some private hospitals were refusing admission for COVID-19 patients citing absence of isolation facilities. “Lack of evidence is not evidence of absence,” he said.
Second wave
Though there is no doubt that the cases had increased, a few more days of monitoring is necessary to conclude if it were a temporary variation or the actual beginning of a second wave. “We can’t deny a second wave. There is no dispute globally that there will be a second wave. It is only a matter of time,” Dr. Babu said.
