Amritsar that recorded 325 new Covid cases and 7 deaths on Wednesday has so far not registered a shortage of hospital deaths. However, it doesn’t suggest that the district is keeping the deaths or coronavirus in check as experts say that the reason behind this that people were not coming to hospitals until too late.
The city reported 55 deaths in April taking the total death tally to 731 since the outbreak. The city has currently 3,218 active cases, Indian Express reported.
Health authorities said that the reason behind the Covid deaths in the city is that people are still treating patients at home and they come to hospital only when the patient turns serious. The city was one of the worst affected districts in the first wave and the second wave is proving more dangerous.
Reports say that Government Medical College, Amritsar, has maximum 115 ventilators and 87 of these are available for the Covid-19 patients. The city’s military hospitals also have 3 out of 7 ventilators for Covid patients and in 25 private hospitals, 176 out of 279 ventilators are reserved for Covid patients.
GMC has 250 beds for Covid-19 patients in Level 2 and 200 for patients in Level 3. Private and military hospitals have 521 beds for Level-2 and 236 beds for Level-3 in district, according to the report.
However, till April 6, only 47 Level-2 beds and 77 Level-3 beds were occupied at GMC. At private hospitals, 245 Level-2 and 100 Level-3 beds were only occupied. Total 479 beds in Level-2 and 144 Level-3 beds are still vacant in district.
“Most of the patients are coming when they turn serious. People are still hiding initial symptoms and only report when things are out of hand. Most patients come to us after testing all the tips available on YouTube to cure the Covid-19. It is the reason that we have vacant beds. If numbers keep increasing then there may be shortage of beds in long run. Vaccination is only hope to keep the number of serious cases in control,” a health official at Government Medical College reportedly said.
The vaccination turnout has also been low in the district. So far around 86,000 people have registered for vaccination and only 2.09% of them are fully vaccinated in district.
Sixty-three more people died from coronavirus in Punjab, taking the toll to 7,278 on Wednesday, while the tally rose to 2.6 lakh with 2,997 new cases, the Health Department said. The active cases dropped to 25,855 from 25,913 a day ago, while 2,959 patients recuperated, taking the number of recoveries to 2,26,887, according to a bulletin.
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