Health authorities remain concerned about a week-on-week increase in deaths, though this is lower than the rate at which new cases are being added every week. And while severity is more among the hospitalised cases with many requiring intensive care units (ICUs), the experience gained in managing such patients is helping reduce fatalities, officials said.
“Clinical experience gained through last several months has helped. Besides, the health ministry now has a detailed standard treatment protocol and hospitals are following it. This has helped keep deaths under control but the states with high caseload are also reporting larger number of deaths,” a senior official said.
Officials are concerned that though deaths in proportion to new cases are low, health infrastructure may come under stress from rising cases and this may impact the toll. Average daily new cases are increasing at nearly 43% week-on-week, whereas new deaths are increasing 37% week-on-week, health ministry data till March 17 shows.
While daily new cases started increasing from around February 21, the case fatality rate — denoting deaths over total number of cases — declined from 1.42% to 1.39% at present. In September, when cases were at a peak, case fatality rate was at around 1.75%. This declined to around 1.5% in October and further to around 1.45% in December.
Even in Maharashtra and Punjab, which have witnessed a sharp increase in cases, the death rate has declined, though the two states are contributing the maximum to the death count from the infections.