State recovery rate needs to recover
GOOD/BAD SHOW While Agra has reached a recovery rate of over 80 per cent, Kanpur’s recovery rate is just 30 per cent.
LUCKNOW:As against the national recovery rate of about 70 per cent among Covid-19 patients, the recovery rate is about 61 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, with some districts like Kanpur’s recovery rate being as low as 30 per cent.
Lucknow was not doing very well either with a recovery rate of 51.56 per cent.
Speaking on the slower recovery rate in UP in comparison to the national recovery rate, former director of SGPGI and director Medanta, Lucknow, Dr Rakesh Kapoor said, “Delhi crossed the peak in July. From then they are getting lesser cases than the number of patients discharged by them. That’s why their rate of recovery is getting better with each passing day,”
Director SGPGI professor Radha Krishna Dhiman says, “Uttar Pradesh has performed exceptionally well as we have the death rate under 1.6 per cent. You will have to understand the problems to contain the pandemic in such a densely-populated state like UP. We have done well in terms of testing and containment strategies as compared to the rest of the country till now. Soon, the number of infected people per day will reduce in comparison to patients recovered.”
Dr PK Gupta of Indian Medical Association says, “In Uttar Pradesh, we have yet to reach the peak. That’s why the recovery rate is around 60%. The day the number of new patients reduces, the recovery rate will rise. We are lucky that in UP the death rate is much lower than other states.”
According to official sources, 80,589 out of the 1,31,763 coronavirus infected patients in the state were discharged till Monday, which comes to 61.16 per cent recovery.
Director general, medical and health, Uttar Pradesh, Dr DS Negi said the state health department is constantly working on a multipronged strategy to improve the recovery rate of Covid patients. This includes increasing beds in the Level 2 Covid facilities and reserving ambulances for Covid patients in all government hospitals.
The state health department has established integrated Covid command and control centres in divisions and zones to monitor the pandemic, management of the health services and other facilities in all the 75 districts.
Apparently some districts are pulling down the state recovery rate though Agra, which at one stage was counted as most sensitive, had improved its recovery rate to 80 per cent.
ALARMING IN KANPUR
Despite Kanpur being a tier-one city of Uttar Pradesh with highend medical infrastructure, it has not coped well with the pandemic and continues to evoke concern on all parameters.
For instance, the recovery rate of Covid-19 patients here has plummeted to 30.05 %, the lowest since the first coronavirus case was reported from the city on March 23.
The mortality rate is 3.36 %, nearly double the state average. The positivity rate is 9.28%. These figures were calculated from the data available with the health authorities here till August 10.
DECLINE IN PRAYAGRAJ
Prayagraj has recovery rate of 58 per cent — a significant fall from 65 to 68 per cent during the first four months
“Our recovery rate at one time was 72 per cent due to focused and effective efforts towards containment, increased testing, effective monitoring of home isolation and treatment at dedicated wards. The rapid response teams that have been formed to undertake effective checks on people being in home isolation after testing positive was another reason as they are strict and anyone who fails to adhere to the norms are being admitted to hospitals,” shared Dr Rishi Sahai, district nodal officer for Covid-19.
“However, we have at present significantly hiked our testing to 2,000 tests per day and are also undertaking intensive contact tracing at a rate of 15 to 20 persons for every positive case. This has led to a rise in the number of positive cases being discovered every day. Till July 31 we had around 2,428 positive cases which by August 10 reached 4,270. This has obviously affected our recovery rate which has come down to 58 per cent as it takes around 8 to 10 days for a patient to get discharged,” he said.
AGRA AND ALIGARH DOING VERY WELL
While Agra is maintaining a recovery rate of 80.55 per cent, Aligarh is not much behind having a recovery rate of almost 70 per cent
“In all 1,717 Covid patients have been discharged in Agra out of a total 2,136 -- thus recording a recovery rate of 80.55 per cent till Monday night,” informed the district magistrate of Agra Prabhu N Singh.
In comparison, 1,465 patients have been discharged out of 2,123 total positive cases in Aligarh with a recovery rate at almost 70 per cent. In Aligarh, daily cases had increased recently but the district authorities attribute it to enhanced sampling with 62,514 corona tests conducted in Aligarh, which presently has 632 active cases.
GRIM SCENARIO IN AZAMGARH
Medical superintendent, Azamgarh district hospital, Dr SKG Singh says, “Covid-19 testing rate and speed have increased tremendously in the district during past three weeks due to which more positive cases are being detected daily. For example, 69 persons were tested positive for corona on Monday. It is a big figure.
Usually, it takes 10 to 14 days to recover by a patient. In the district a large number of patients have been detected in the last fortnight.
“Therefore, recovery rate at present appears to be low -- 49 per cent. Many of the patients, who have been detected in the last fortnight, have started recovering. When all these patients will be discharged, the recovery rate will improve automatically,” he said.