‘Fall in death count doesn’t mean much unless it becomes a trend’
LUCKNOW : Despite Uttar Pradesh registering a sharp fall in daily Covid deaths on Friday, experts warned there was nothing to relax about unless this decline in numbers became a trend for over the next two weeks.
UP saw 172 deaths on Friday as compared to 238 a day before. But this fall wasn’t enough, said experts.
“Decline in fresh daily cases has become a feature over the past two weeks. But a single-day fall in deaths does not mean much unless it becomes a trend,” said Dr Vinod Jain, dean, paramedical sciences at the King George’s Medical University (KGMU).
“Most of the deaths now are of those patients who had been admitted to hospitals approximately two weeks ago and their condition became critical. Death among fresh cases has already gone down, but ICUs are still almost full,” said Dr Samir Misra, senior faculty, trauma surgery at KGMU.
Majority of those dying were patients who, during the course of treatment had a prolonged stay in hospital and even had to be provided life support, he said.
As per data, about 62% fall was reported in daily cases since April 30, when the state reported 34,626 fresh cases and 3,10,783 active cases under treatment. On May 20, there were 6,725 fresh cases and 1,16,434 active cases.
When will mortality rate retreat?
Experts said as daily cases were now falling, fresh serious cases had also gone down. “But those admitted to ICU weeks ago are still critical,” said Misra.
“It’s the dynamics of Covid wave that cases go up first and near the peak of the wave deaths start rising swiftly. The second wave is retreating, but deaths will take another two weeks to fall considerably just as they started rising after the second wave peak,” said Dr Ved Prakash, HoD, pulmonary critical care medicine at the KGMU. UP’s overall case positivity rate, which was 11.63% on May 1, came down to 4.88% on May 15 and to 2.6% on May 21, according to health department data. The state’s case fatality rate remains unchanged since May 1, at over 1%.