Concern as Covid deaths mount amid drop in cases in Bengaluru

Covid’s second surge in the city is being described as an epidemic of contradictions. This is because there have been large death disclosures in recent days though discharges are at an all-time high and new case numbers are plummeting.

From May 18 to 26, the state discharged 2.09 lakh people while daily case numbers have hit a 43-day low. However, at the same time, the number of deaths have increased from 250 on May 18 to 350 on May 25.

BBMP chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta said that many of the fatalities in recent days are backlogs being reconciled. Nevertheless, when deaths are considered by actual dates, the trend appears to suggest that fatalities are likely to remain moderately high for the rest of the month - especially since not all deaths which happened in May have been made public owing to backlog reconciliation.

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Experts are concerned since the case fatality rate (CFR) is increasing. Case fatality rate is used to measure disease severity and for predicting disease course. High rates are indicative of relatively poor outcomes.

According to the Jeevan Raksha project, a data analysis think-tank, CFR rose from 0.8 on May 1 to 5.8 on May 25. The issue is again prompted by poor testing, said Sanjeev Mysore, convener of the project.

“In the first wave, Bengaluru hit the peak on October 8 with 5,121 cases, when the average number of tests was 43,500. The average daily deaths was 31. In the second wave, the peak was 26,756 on April 30. It receded to 6,243 on May 20 with average daily deaths of 220, seven times that of the first wave. The average daily testing in May 2021 is around 46,000, almost the same as the first wave peak though the caseload rose by five times,” he said.

Epidemiologist Dr Giridhara Babu said ICU and oxygenated bed crunch caused the deaths.