95% of Covid-19 deaths recorded among 50+ age group in Tamil Nadu

The majority of those who died of Covid-19 in the first 15 days of 2022 in Tamil Nadu were people above 50 years of age and were associated with a co-morbid condition, while nearly 70 per cent of those who lost their lives were either unvaccinated or had taken just one dose of vaccine, an analysis by the Health Department has found.

The Health Department said as many as 191 persons have lost their lives in Tamil Nadu from January 1 to January 15 and 181 of them (94.7 per cent) had one or other co-morbidity associated. In a previous analysis done between August and October, the government found around 84 per cent of those who died due to Covid-19 were unvaccinated.

Sharing the results of the latest “administrative analysis”, Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr T S Selva Vinayagam said of the 191 deaths, 163 of them, constituting 85.3 per cent happened in more than 50-years-old.

“When you look into the comorbidities, 181 out of 191 almost 94.7 per cent had one or other co-morbidity associated. The analysis of a combination of elderly with comorbid reveals that 159 out of 191 constituting 83.2 per cent of deaths happened in elderly persons with probably uncontrolled comorbidity,” the DPH said.

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The analysis, Dr Selva Vinayagam said, found as many as 131 persons (68.5 per cent) out of the 191 dead are either not vaccinated or partially vaccinated. Experts say this is a cause of concern as the vaccination percentage of elders in Tamil Nadu is comparatively less at 62 per cent for the first dose and a mere 48 per cent for the second dose when compared to overall 88.62 per cent for the first dose and 64.23 per cent for the second dose.

“It also shows that the protective effect of vaccination is often scuttled by uncontrolled comorbidities which need a further deeper case to case analysis,” the DPH said. Experts have been warning people not to consider Omicron infection as “mild” as it has the potential to cause serious illness in the unvaccinated population and those with co-morbidities even among the vaccinated.

Tamil Nadu is witnessing a massive surge in Covid-19 cases with as many as 23,975 persons testing positive for the novel coronavirus on Sunday alone, pushing the number of active cases to 1,42,476. The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of the state is also quite high at 16.7 per cent with Chennai topping at 30 per cent.

Pointing to the findings, the DPH asked the elderly, and unvaccinated with comorbidity to seek hospital care to prevent mortality. “It is time to protect our elders by vaccinating them and also ensuring that they take proper medication for the comorbidity and keep it under control,” Dr Selva Vinayagam said.

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