A ray of hope in COVID grimness: India’s death rate is around one per cent

In the continuing deaths and grimness of COVID pandemic, there’s appears some hope: The COVID death rate in India, despite a very strong surge in the second wave, is a little over one per cent, reported India Today. This means almost 99 per cent of COVID patients are recovering and surviving the illness caused by several variants of the novel coronavirus

Three of the biggest COVID hotspots are showing signs of plateauing — Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. Madhya Pradesh is also showing the kind of stabilization seen during the peak of a pandemic wave.

But at the national level, India continues to see new peaks every day. Sunday’s figure of over 3.50 lakh fresh cases pushed the COVID caseload to over 1.73 crore. Of these cases, 1.95 lakh people have lost their lives following complications from the illness.

That would mean India has a COVID case fatality rate (CFR) of 1.12 per cent. The rest are recoveries or survivors. At the end of the pandemic, total cases minus total fatalities determine recoveries. At present, India has a 98.88 per cent recovery rate.

Also read: TN, Kerala may witness a delayed second wave of COVID-19

Most patients (the figure varies from 85 per cent to over 90 per cent in different states) don’t require hospitalization. They recover in home isolation. Of those admitted to hospitals, less than 30 per cent (around 28) have required mechanical ventilation during the second wave of the pandemic as against over 37 per cent in the first wave.

On April 25 India touched a new high for lab-confirmed COVID cases and also recorded around 2.20 lakh recoveries. This was the highest number of patients recovered in any country.

India’s positivity rate is very high at present. On Sunday, one of every four samples tested for COVID was found positive for the infection — 3.54 lakh out of 14.02 lakh samples.

Doctors and health experts say India can reduce the positivity rate to five per cent — the benchmark that the World Health Organisation (WHO) treats as manageable for the pandemic — in three weeks by following safety protocols — masking, hand washing and social distancing.

Also read: 100th day of India’s inoculation drive; 14 crore vaccines given in 99 days