5-10% Covid cases need hospital care

Hyderabad: The surge in daily Covid infections driven by the Omicron variant is expected to see 5 per cent to 10 per cent of active Covid cases requiring hospital care in Telangana and elsewhere in the country, estimates from union Health Ministry and State health officials, have indicated. While the situation created by the rise […]

Hyderabad: The surge in daily Covid infections driven by the Omicron variant is expected to see 5 per cent to 10 per cent of active Covid cases requiring hospital care in Telangana and elsewhere in the country, estimates from union Health Ministry and State health officials, have indicated.

While the situation created by the rise of Covid infections due to the Omicron variant is still dynamic and in initial stages, health authorities here are hoping that the demand for hospitalisation will be less than the earlier Delta wave when one out of every four Covid positive patients needed hospital admission.

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Based on the present scenario of the Omicron driven third wave in cities like Mumbai, daily infections in Telangana would continue to rise in the coming days but with less number of positive infections needing hospital admissions, health officials here said.

During the Delta wave in 2021, the percentage of hospitalisation among Covid patients hovered between 20 per cent and 25 per cent across the country. However, preliminary Omicron-driven third wave data has indicated that hospital admissions could be up to 10 per cent, which means for 100 Omicron positive cases, roughly 10 cases may need hospital care while the rest will recover in home isolation.

Anticipating the important role that home isolation could play, the State government has already procured one crore home isolation kits and have made them available at all government healthcare establishments in Telangana.

However, if the transmissibility of the Omicron variant continues to increase and more individuals test Covid positive, compared to the earlier Delta wave, then the hospital infrastructure could come under stress, senior health officials here have warned. While these are still the early days of the third wave, any significant rise in the number of deaths in government or private hospitals, which is happening in the last few days, must also be attributed to the Omicron variant and not the Delta variant, which is on its way out.

Already 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the Covid infections across the country can be attributed to the Omicron variant, as it has successfully replaced the Delta variant. Therefore, any rise in fatalities or even hospital admissions should be directly linked to the Omicron variant, public health experts said.

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