Although COVID-19 patients are discharged from hospitals on the fourth or fifth day if they develop clinical stability, the State’s recovery rate has reduced considerably in the last one month.
From 98.1% on February 28, recovery rate reduced by over 1 per cent to touch 97.8% on March 15. Subsequently, it further dipped to 96.3% by March 30 and 90.1% in mid-April. In the next 15 days, the recovery rate saw a drastic reduction to touch 73.9% on April 30. As of Saturday (May 8), the recovery rate has touched 69.9%.
Among the districts, Gadag and Chitradurga have the highest recovery rate at 91.76% and 90.51% respectively. Kodagu and Bengaluru Urban have the lowest at 61.14% and 61.69% respectively as of May 6.
Karnataka’s COVID-19 situation had witnessed a steady improvement since September with a healthy recovery rate of 90.7% till October-end.
- 98.1%: February 28
- 97.8%: March 15
- 96.3%: March 30
- 90.5%: April 15
- 73.9%: April 30
- 69.9%: May 8
The trend of recoveries outnumbering new cases further improved and touched 98.1% by the end of February.
However, with the pandemic spinning out of control and availability of beds becoming a challenge after the second wave set in, more patients are developing complications and landing in hospitals in an advanced stage. As a result, they are taking a longer time to recover.
COVID-19 experts in the State attributed the plummeting recovery rate to a high caseload.
V. Ravi, State’s COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) member, who is also the nodal officer for SARS-CoV-2 in Karnataka, said it was natural for the recovery rate to be low during the surge period.
“Normally people will require 14 days for recovery. People who have tested positive in last 14 days will start recovering now. With some patients taking longer time to recover, more patients will be discharged in another 10 days,” he explained.
He said recoveries would start going up after we cross the peak. “With nearly 50,000 cases being added every day, it is difficult for the recoveries to match the number of positive cases,” Dr. Ravi said.
C.N. Manjunath, nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID-19 task force, said even if patients were getting discharged from hospitals much earlier compared to the previous wave, they were taking a longer time to get classified as “recovered”, as most of them would need further monitoring at step-down hospitals, COVID care centres or at home.
“With the State getting into a stricter lockdown, people should also cooperate. All those who have symptoms, irrespective of the severity, should get tested and isolated to prevent deterioration,” he said.
Pointing out that vaccination was an important tool in the fight against the virus, Dr. Manjunath said vaccination would help reduce the severity of the disease, even if the person was infected.
Mysore Sanjeev, convener of Project Jeevan Raksha, a public-private partnership initiative involving Public Health Foundation of India, Indian Medical Association, and Proxima, a management consulting firm, said the growth of recovery rate was indirectly proportional to the active cases growth rate.
“When the active cases increase due to surge in positive cases, the recovery rate falls because the incremental number of people who got infected during the said period would be either isolated in hospital or at home,” he added.
