Shivalik
The fatality rate of the deadly COVID-19 has dropped and about 90 per cent of infected persons now have mild symptoms, said the Director of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Dr Randeep Guleria, in conversation with Hindustan Times’ Hindi language publication Hindustan.
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Dr Guleria's words come as a faint, yet much needed ray of hope in these trying times where the number of coronavirus cases in the country continues to surge dramatically. He said that since patients who initially contracted the disease with serious symptoms "were kept in isolation, the disease could not spread much."
He noted that 12 to 13 cities in India have more than 80 per cent of the coronavirus disease and “if we control these hotspots, the disease will reach its peak in two to three weeks.”
Dr Guleria said that Indians have higher immunity “because most of us have got the BCG vaccination," adding that the total number of people in intensive care and ventilators are very less.
Speaking about hydroxychloroquine and remdisivir-- two medicines that were in the news recently for possibly giving us a vaccine against the novel virus-- the doctor said, “Remdisivir can decrease the hospitalisation time, but it cannot reduce the death rate in serious patients. Hydroxychloroquine too is helpful for people with mild symptoms."
He added that there was no community spread in India and that people need to be wary of hotspots.
On Wednesday, the country reported 8,909 new cases of COVID-19-- the highest single-day surge so far, and 217 deaths in the last 24 hours (between Tuesday and Wednesday). The total cases of infections have crossed the 2 Lakh mark. The health ministry dashboard showed there were 207,615 infections, including 101,497 actives cases and 5,815 fatalities.
