Karnataka ICU patient data shows 22 missing Covid-19 cases

Shortly after Unlock 1.0, as the number of Covid-19 cases started to increase, health officials stopped disclosing details about critically ill patients in ICUs across the state. Now, an analysis has revealed that the fate of 22 ICU patients is unknown.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in Karnataka on March 9 to June 15, there have been a total of 110 Covid-19 patients in the ICU. That number had increased to 271 as of Tuesday, although the patient details of those in ICU are no longer being disclosed.

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The last public disclosure of ICU patients was on June 15. Of the known cases, 20 (or 18.1%) have died and 68 have been discharged. For the remaining 22, however, no information has been provided.

Among these are nine from Bengaluru Urban, five from Kalaburagi, three from Ballari and one each from Udupi, Dharwad, Dakshina Kannada, Vijayapura and Ramanagara.

Most of the cases are from early June, but one harks back to April. This is Patient 349, a 64-year-old man from Sudhamanagar, Bengaluru, who had symptoms of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), and was identified as Covid-positive on April 17, over 11 weeks ago. There is no information of him having been discharged or having died since.

Officers at RGICD and Victoria Hospital could not shed light on the matter.

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Hephsiba Rani Korlapati, director of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) Covid War Room attributed some incomplete cases to some patient data not being reconciled since the start of the pandemic.

“We are working hard to get all the data sorted out,” she said.

However, according to the state’s first update of its discharge policy on May 26, making patients eligible for discharge after 10 days of hospitalisation, a swathe of ICU patients have been discharged after spending an average of 12.4 days in hospital.

In contrast, all the members of the “missing” group have already spent over 15 days in ICU care, as of Tuesday.

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Those in the group are: Patients 349, 5333, 5784, 6023, 6035, 6036, 6128, 6162 and 6365 from Bengaluru; Patient 5452 from Udupi; Patients 5498, 5520, 6181, 6740 and 6805 from Kalaburagi; Patients 5955, 6432 and 7102 from Ballari; Patient 6252 from Dharwad; Patient 6283 from Dakshina Kannada, Patient 6587 from Vijayapura and Patient 6855 from Ramanagaras.

Fourteen are males. Within both sexes the largest concentration (13) are in the vulnerable group, aged 50 and above. However, the group also contains a 20-year-old woman from Kalaburagi (Patient 6181), two children (aged nine and four) who also hail from Kalaburagi, and five people in their thirties from Bengaluru, Kalaburagi and Ballari.