The elderly and those with comorbidities are still turning critical after contracting Covid, although the number of daily new cases has come down significantly.
Two Covid patients died at one private hospital in Kolkata on Tuesday.
At another hospital, one patient was on a ventilator and two others were in the critical care unit. West Bengal on Tuesday recorded 272 new Covid cases and a test positivity rate of 2.72 per cent.
About a month back, on July 23, West Bengal had reported 1,844 new cases and a test positivity rate of 12.64 per cent.
Two elderly patients who had tested positive for Covid died at Belle Vue Clinic in south Kolkata on Tuesday. One of them was an 88-year-old man.
The death certificate for the patient mentioned Covid pneumonia, sepsis, multi-organ failure with hypertension, officials of the hospital said.
The other victim was a 79-year-old woman, who had cardiac ailments.
She, too, had Covid pneumonia. “We had six Covid patients in the morning but unfortunately two of them expired.
The flow of Covid patients has reduced but still almost every day we are having one or two patients who are in a serious condition,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue Clinic.
The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences had nine Covid patients admitted, of whom three were in the critical care unit.
One of them, who suffers from renal failure, is on a ventilator.
“Although the number of Covid patients admitted in our hospital has reduced to below 10 for over two weeks, a few patients who are elderly and with comorbid conditions are still turning critical,” said R. Venkatesh, chief operating officer, east and south, Naryana Health, which runs the Mukundapur hospital.
“The fear of Covid is gone among patients and their relatives, which is clearly evident from the flow of non-Covid patients. But there is also a parallel steady flow of Covid patients. Though the numbers have gone down from more than 30 a month back to below 10, it has remained there for some time now,” he said.
Peerless Hospital had three Covid patients on Tuesday, of whom one was on a non-invasive ventilator, said officials.
“We are unable to shut down the Covid ward because still patients are getting admitted and some of them are needing oxygen or ventilation support. A few days back we had no Covid patients admitted, but now we have three,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of Peerless Hospital.
“Now, Covid is like other infections like influenza or bacterial pneumonia which can lead to severe illness in an individual who is already unwell. But there will be certain individuals, although very few, who will have severe Covid despite being otherwise healthy,” said Chandramouli Bhattacharya, infectious disease expert at Peerless Hospital.
“Vaccination can prevent death and severity among the vulnerable population.”
