Mumbai, Delhi Among Five States To Witness Shortage Of COVID Facilities: Centre

With the surge in the coronavirus cases and the noticeable lack in hospital inventory, the Centre On June 11 raised red flags in the country's battle against the deadly virus.

Stating that 69 districts have high Case Fatality Rate, it warned five most severely affected states namely Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh that it might in future witness a shortage of COVID care facilities like ICU beds and ventilators.

As per projections, Delhi which has been under the radar for its shortfall of COVID facilities may already have run out of ICU beds on June 3, will run out of ventilators on June 12, and isolation beds with oxygen on June 25. Maharashtra is projected to have a shortage of ICU beds on August 8, while it may run out of ventilators by July 27. Tamil Nadu is expected to run out of ICU beds and ventilators by July 9, and isolation beds with oxygen on July 21.

The projections also warned that 17 districts, including Gurugram, Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Jalgaon, Chennai, and Gautam Buddh Nagar, will run the risk of a capacity shortfall in the next one month if the current trend continues. These districts have been flagged for special attention to guard against complacency over improvement in the national doubling rate (16.9 days as against 14.1 days two weeks ago) and stable CFR (number of fatalities per 100 detected cases) at around 2.9 per cent as against 2.96 per cent a fortnight ago.

"Increase in confirmation rate from 5.70 per cent from 4.87 per cent two weeks ago indicates either the spread of infection or less testing. At the state level, three states have more than 10 per cent confirmation rate. Mumbai and Thane in Maharashtra and Chennai in Tamil Nadu, for instance, have a higher confirmation rate than 20 per cent, while Palghar (Maharashtra), Medchal-Malkajgiri (Telangana) and Hojai (Assam) have more than 20 per cent confirmation rate in rural areas," the Centre told the states in a report by The Indian Express.

While six states Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal constitute 76 per cent of all Covid-19 positive cases, it was underlined that 82 per cent of total deaths came from five states Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. The Cabinet Secretary drew attention to 30 "epicentre" districts that account for 72 per cent of the active caseload and suggested "fatality mitigation" as an additional "urgent" focus area for them.

The action plan recommended by the Cabinet Secretary included containment, testing, tracing, and health system upgradation. They asked the states to ensure hospital capacity through advance planning for the next two months and sufficient logistics (e.g. pulse oximeters) along with bed capacity and HR.

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