Fewer Covid-19 deaths in India during second wave, except in Punjab

Amid Covid-19's rapid resurgence in India, the death rates at the start of the second wave so far are the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic, barring Punjab, although experts caution that keeping it that way may be a challenge.

The case fatality rate (CFR), which is the fraction of deaths among laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases, declined steadily from 1.75 per cent in July 2020 to 1.4 per cent in December and 0.79 per cent in February. The CFR for the country stays at 0.59 per cent between March 1-15, 2021.

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Punjab presents a completely different picture when it comes to Covid mortality. Since February 15, close to 500 Covid-19 deaths have been reported in the northern state giving it a CFR of 4.5 per cent. Even the cumulative CFR for Punjab is 3 per cent as against India's 1.4 per cent.

When asked whether the second wave is less virulent, senior virologist Shahid Jameel, a professor at Ashoka University said, “By and large this is true except in Punjab where the case fatality rate in this stage is at least double that of other states showing the surge. Tier 2 cities are already affected especially in Maharashtra and Punjab,”

“Can this be due to circulating mutants? We don’t yet know,” Jameel told DH.

On Friday, as many as 39,726 new Covid-19 infections were reported from all over the country — the highest single-day rise in 110 days, but mortality stays low.

While active cases are up in 19 of the 20 most populous states, Maharashtra overtakes them all by miles. A central team that visited Maharashtra earlier this month mentioned in their report that though there were more infections, the cases were less virulent.

In Punjab, like the rest of the country, the Covid numbers and CFR were low till the first half of February, then they started rising. Out of 154 new fatalities reported on Friday, 32 are from Punjab and 58 from Maharashtra.

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Observing that the epidemic was far from over, public health experts observed that it would be better to have a cautious approach on the mortality trend and more analysis would be needed.

“The assessment of virulence must be after comparing age ranges — if younger persons are getting infected, we will see very few deaths. Re-infections also should be associated with fewer deaths,” veteran virologist T Jacob John, a former professor at the Christian Medical College, Vellore told DH.