• 87 deaths reported in Mysuru from Jan. 20 to Feb. 6 — 18 days
• Bengaluru health officials seek State-level death audit team to look into real reasons

Mysore/Mysuru: After prolonged spell, COVID cases are slowly declining in Mysuru and also in the State of Karnataka.

In Mysuru, the bed requirement has drastically reduced prompting the District Administration to close the 22 COVID Care Centres (CCC) that were opened in preparation to combat the third wave. “Only the CCC at KSOU Academic Bhavan in Mandakalli will be retained for some time as a precaution. All the rest of the CCCs will be closed and the equipment will be returned,” said District Health Officer (DHO) Dr. K.H. Prasad.

The Union Health Ministry this morning said the pandemic situation has improved. India on Monday logged 83,876 fresh cases that took its total tally to 4,22,72,014. This is the first time in around 32 days that daily cases have dropped below one lakh. The death toll climbed to 5,02,874 with 895 more fatalities, as per the updated data.

As per the COVID-19 War Room data on day-wise positivity rate, the third wave peaked in Karnataka on Jan. 23, 2022 when the highest rate stood at 32.95 percent. After this point, figures began declining consistently. Yesterday, the positivity rate stood at 9.04 percent.

Death a matter of concern

Though the cases are on the decline, rising deaths is a matter of concern in spite of the Health Department authorities claiming that the deaths are mainly due to comorbidities. In Mysuru, from Jan. 20 to Jan. 31, 52 persons lost their lives due to COVID.

From Feb. 1 to Feb. 6,  35 COVID deaths were reported. In all, 87 deaths were reported from Jan. 20 to Feb. 6 — in a span of 18 days.

The daily caseload that was around 3,500 to 4,000 earlier has come down to less than a thousand. Yesterday, Mysuru reported 582 positives and three deaths.

As per the media bulletin released by the District Administration, nearly half of the dead are above 75 years of age and a majority of the deaths has been attributed to refractory hypoxia, septic shock, COVID bronchopneumonia and severe COVID infection.

Death audit sought

This apart, comorbidities too have contributed to the lion’s share of the deaths. According to officials in Bengaluru, prima facie, the reports from the districts have shown Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) to be the major reason for the deaths. Nearly 30 to 35 percent of the cases are of those people who have comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes and chronic kidney or liver ailment and COVID has aggravated their situation.

As the reporting time analysis of the patients showed that nearly 53 percent of the deaths happened within two days of reporting to hospitals, officials feel that many of the deaths could have been prevented if there was early intervention.

A possible reason also could be miscommunication that Omicron is mild and patients may have waited to reach hospital, officials said.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Family Welfare has requested the Government to constitute a State-level death audit team to look into the reasons behind deaths during the third wave.