Karnataka will see 20,000 to 70,000 hospitalisations for Covid by the end of January or February 2.
These are the new projections made by researchers at the Indian Statistical Institute and Indian Institute of Science on Tuesday
Similarly, projections made by the researchers for ICU bed requirement shows that the state will require 1,000 beds to more than 3,000 beds by February 2.
Read more: Covid cases in Bengaluru cross 15,000 mark
As per projections made by another group INDSCI-SIM (Indian Scientists’ Response to Covid-19), Karnataka, by January 25, will have 35,000 daily cases and 500 to 5,000 severe cases, based on whether individuals are fully vaccinated or unvaccinated.
Prof Gautam Menon, professor of Physics and Biology, Ashoka University, Haryana, who has worked on several Covid models and is a part of INDSCI-SIM, told DH, “Across the country, we expect six lakh to nine lakh new Covid cases to be reported at the peak between January 21 and February 10. By March, the curve will flatten. Another common thing with projections from other models is that the number of cases will be larger than the second wave.”
“A subset of the projections we’ve made for severe cases will be ICU patients and the others can be considered those requiring hospitalisation owing to the severity of the disease. Data is based on the number of people getting tested,” he said.
“INDSCI-SIM model also looks at people who have recovered from the disease. People susceptible are those who have never been vaccinated and those who have been infected once. We take this fraction to be 20% of the population. Those who have been infected once can be infected again,” he added.
Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) president Dr H M Prasanna said, “The state’s private sector does not have 1.4 lakh beds as is being reported. When the second wave started, we checked and there were only 66,000 beds. This is as per the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust portal. We don’t know when it increased. Maybe the government is factoring in medical college hospital beds.”
Estimating the number of beds in private hospitals, he said, there are around 6,500 private hospitals in Karnataka, apart from medical colleges.
“In all, there are 70,000 beds in private hospitals and medical colleges. In both the government and private sector, there may not be more than one lakh beds,” he said.
Health commissioner D Randeep told DH, “The operative number would be the beds deployed for Covid as per government directions, not total beds.”
As per figures shared by him, there are 28,283 adult beds (general, O2, HDU, ICU, ventilator) and 3,466 paediatric beds in the state.
In all, there are 31,749 beds in the health department-run hospitals (excluding medical education department-run hospitals).
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