Upward trend in fatalities with 84 deaths this week
Even as Nagaland, for the first time in a month witnessed a decline in weekly new Covid cases, the number of fatalities continued an upward trend with 84 deaths reported in the week the highest ever till date.
Health and Family Welfare (H&FW) department in its weekly bulletin, however, said that deaths always follow a week or more after increase in cases and is expected to plateau in a week unless there are no new infections.
H&FW said that the State, despite witnessing a steady decline in the overall sample positivity rate, however saw an increase in number of districts with more than 10% weekly sample positivity rate. As compared to the previous week (May 15-21) which reported 2062 positive cases, the department said that this week (May 22-28) only 1622 cases were reported, indicating a steady decline.
With 84 deaths recorded this week alone, one of the highest so far ever since the onset of the Covid pandemic, the department said that 21% of deaths have happened within 24 hours of arrival to a hospital signifying arrival with very advanced symptoms. It also said that 10 deaths were been reported from home isolation.
Further, out of 259 deaths recorded this year alone, details of 56 cases were still under investigation, the department said.
Based on the trends over the past week, the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is retreating in India. After reaching the peak of over 4.16 lakh new Covid-19 cases on May 6, India has seen the daily caseload decline to around 2 lakh this week.
However, with the decline in Covid-19 new cases, a spike has been seen in the daily death toll. The reason for such a spike in the daily death toll, while new infections started declining, is a general lag of two weeks if the graph of new cases is compared with the death toll. People who lose the battle against Covid-19 usually undergo treatment for two weeks or more. Their cases are managed medically after their immune system was overwhelmed by the virus.
This battle for life against a deadly pathogen takes time. Most Covid-19 patients recover from the illness on their own in two-three weeks. The immune system of unfortunate ones also tries to fight off the virus for several days.
156 fresh cases, 7 deaths: Nagaland on Saturday reported 156 fresh Covid positive cases while seven more patients succumbed to the infection.
Of the fresh cases, 76 were reported from Kohima, 35 from Dimapur, 15 from Phek, nine from Kiphire, seven each from Longleng and Zunheboto, four from Mokokchung, and one each from Mon, Peren and Wokha, taking the total caseload to 21371.
Further, out of seven fatalities recorded, four were from Dimapur and one each in Kohima, Mokokchung and Phek. With this the death toll rose to 350 (338 Covid deaths and 12 non-Covid but with Covid positivity).
The state currently has 4982 active cases while a total of 15414 have recuperated from the infection till date.
PTI: The single day rise in Covid cases was recorded at 1,73,790, the lowest in last 45 days, taking India’s total tally of cases to 2,77,29,247, the Health ministry said.
The daily positivity further declined to 8.36%, remaining below 10% for five consecutive days, while the weekly positivity rate dropped to 9.84%, it said.
However, the death toll climbed to 3,22,512 with 3,617 daily deaths, the data updated by the ministry at 8 am showed.