35 of 46 who died in Delhi from Jan 5-9 were not jabbed: Govt analysis
NEW DELHI: A Delhi government analysis of deaths among Covid-19 patients in the city between January 5 and 9 has shown that 35 out of 46, or 76%, of the fatalities were in unvaccinated people, and 21, or almost half, were admitted for other reasons before they were detected as infected with coronavirus.
The data reinforces trends seen worldwide and in other Indian cities – being vaccinated significantly reduces the risk of fatality, and many of the infections in hospitalised people are incidental discoveries, suggesting they already needed medical attention for complications not necessarily linked to Covid-19.
“It will be wrong to say that this time deaths are happening purely because of Covid-19. If we say, deaths are because of Omicron, it will be incorrect. It is mostly because of other co-morbidities,” said BL Sherwal, medical director at Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, adding that there is a marked reduction in the number of serious people being hospitalised.
A detailed classification of cause of death was not immediately available of all deaths that occurred in this period, but some analysed by HT showed a pattern that in many of the deaths, a Covid-19 infection was seemingly incidental.
One such case was the death of a 74 -year-old man at Lok Nayak Hospital due to a heart attack – this person was detected as Covid-positive only after his demise. A second death at the same facility was that of a 77-year-old cancer patient. Another fatality was at Majidia Hospital, where the 59-year-old patient had uncontrolled diabetes and chest infection while a fourth death, at National Heart Institute, was of an 80-year-old man who was asymptomatic but had severe hypertension, according to some of the death records seen by HT.
In all, 34 of the 46 the deaths were among people who had comorbid conditions known to raise the risk of severe Covid-19,
Contrary to the govt’s estimate of about 64k beds, experts told the admin the max beds needed even in the worst case during the 5th wave may peak at 46k and 23 – or 50% -- of all deaths were recorded within a day of the patients being admitted, suggesting their condition was already critical when they got medical attention.
To be sure, it is not clear if Covid further complicated the existing comorbidities.
The January 5-9 hospitalisation and death analysis was presented at the Delhi Disaster Management Authority’s (DDMA)meeting on Monday, when the agency, headed by the lieutenant governor Anil Baijal, reviewed the Covid-19 outbreak in the Capital and announced new curbs on dining-in at restaurants.
Percentage of Covid cases that need hospitalisation or institutional care
Average length of stay in an oxygen bed
Average length of stay in an ICU bed An official aware of the discussions at the meeting said experts agreed on the need to further study the rise in death numbers, even though they appear to be lower in comparison to past waves.
The Delhi government has formed a Covid death analysis committee to review each death that takes place during the current wave.
The Capital recorded 17 fatalities classified as Covid-19 deaths on Sunday, the highest since June 16. There were 17 deaths on Monday as well.
The data also showed that
Total deaths* 0-15 yrs 16-20 yrs
Male 21-40 yrs 41-60 yrs
Female >60 yrs
Cases which turned positive after admission
Cases admitted to hospital with blood oxygen saturation below 94
Patients had morbidities
Patients needed ICU admission
Number of patients vaccinated while the number of cases requiring oxygen support jumped from 140 to 440 in the five-day period, the proportion of such patients remained under 0.8% of active cases in this period.
Of the 46 deaths, 25 were in people above the age of 60 years, with those between the age of 41 and 60 suffering the next-highest numbers of fatalities at 14.
“Some of the patients who recently died were those who were brought to hospitals when their SpO2 fell below 80 and was in the 70-80 range. Their lungs were badly infected even before they were brought to the hospitals. People should take the infection seriously and avoid self-medication or delay in seeking qualified professional medical treatment,” a second official, who asked not to be named, said.
The severity trends seen in Delhi till now are consistent with the outcomes in other countries hit by Omicron-induced waves. The commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation last week said that of the 1,900 people requiring oxygen support in Mumbai’s hospitals, 96% were unvaccinated.
DEHRADUN: The first likely sighting of Smew Duck, an occasional visitor species to the Indian subcontinent, has been reported in the state by a team of researchers from the Corbett Foundation (TCF), a Ramnagarbased organisation dedicated to conservation of nature and wildlife.
The team led by Harendra Singh Bargali and comprising Deepti Patwal, Idrish Hussain and Chandrashekhar Suyal recorded the sighting of the species at Tumaria Reservoir in US Nagar district.
Suresh Kumar, a scientist from Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and an expert on migratory birds, who tracked journey of common crane from Gujarat to northern Kazakhstan and back in 2020, confirmed that it was the first confirmed reporting of Smew Duck in Uttarakhand.
“It is not a rare bird but it’s coming to India is rare. This Smew Duck, from its photograph taken here, I can say, is a female. There is another similar looking duck found here called Goosander, but the head colouration of that bird is different,” he said.
Sanjay Sondhi, co-author of the “Updated Checklist and Bibliography of the Birds of Uttarakhand”, said it was the first confirmed reporting of Smew Duck in the state backed by photographic evidence.
“Our updated checklist which has listed 710 bird species in Uttarakhand so far, doesn’t have this bird. I have never come across this bird here. There are also no records of this bird from Uttarakhand on eBird platform.
However, the Zoological Survey of India report on fauna of Uttarakhand mentions about an unverified sighting of this bird in Corbett Tiger Reserve. We can say this is first confirmed sighting,” he said.
Dhananjai Mohan, WII director and co-author of “Updated Checklist and Bibliography of the Birds of Uttarakhand”, said t was not surprising that the bird has been sighted in Uttarakhand now as it was sighted in Haiderpur wetland of Uttar Pradesh last year. “I haven’t come across this bird in the state so far,” he said.
Lead researcher Bargali said Smew Duck (Mergellus albellus) was a small and highly migratory diving duck, which belongs to the family Anatidae and is the only living member of the genus Mergellus. The size of the smew duck varies from 36-44 cm and weighs about 500-800 grams, he said.
“The species was sighted in the last week of December and photographs were shared with the IUCN Deck Specialist Group to further confirm the species.
The reservoir mainly serves as a source of water for irrigation in the surrounding areas. The area comes under the Terai-West forest division and is not very far from the boundaries of Corbett Tiger Reserve,” said Bargali.
Bargali said this species breeds in the northern taiga of Europe and Asia. The wintering grounds include sheltered coasts or inland lakes of the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, Great Britain, Caspian Sea, East China, Korea and Japan, he added.
Bargali said the Smew duck was also reported from the Delhi NCR region at the Bhindawas bird sanctuary in Jhajjar 2014, after 92 years since the sighting in 1922. “Another rare sighting was in the Haiderpur wetland in UP’s Muzaffarnagar district in November 2021. It is also one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies. Even though the population trend appears to be decreasing the species is evaluated as Least Concern under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species”, he said.