While over 70% of the 645 COVID-19 deaths reported during January happened in ICUs, over two-thirds were due to comorbidities, especially in those aged above 60, according to an initial assessment of the district death audits by the State Health Department.
To identify deaths that can be attributed only to COVID-19 and the underlying cause in deaths where COVID-19 findings were incidental, the State had recently taken up a comprehensive audit of deaths that happened during the third wave. All districts and the BBMP were asked to audit the 645 deaths reported from January 1 till January 31. The department has now received audit reports from all the districts.
According to the initial assessment, only 13 of the 645 deaths are paediatric deaths and most of these child cases had pre-existing medical conditions. So far, a total of 70 children in the 0-9 age group and 101 in the 10-19 age group have succumbed to the disease, according to data from the State War Room.
State Health Commissioner D. Randeep said that according to initial observations, almost half of the 645 deaths happened within two-three days of admission in hospitals. “This includes brought-dead cases. Late reporting and late admissions seem to be the reason for this,” he said.
Team formed
A 13-member State-level team, headed by K. Ravi, Professor and Head of the Department of Medicine at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, was formed recently. “This team will compile and summarise the district reports. The comprehensive death audit of a representative number of cases at the State level will shed more light and help us chalk out early intervention strategies,” he said.
“We have noticed that a majority of the deaths in the third wave could have been prevented if patients had reported early,” he said.
With the third wave waning, there has been a steady decline in the number of people requiring critical care. As of Saturday [Friday 19], 550 patients required oxygen. While 219 occupied ICU beds, 56 patients are on ventilators, and the rest are in high dependency units, according to data from the Health Department. A month ago, the number of people requiring critical care was nearly three times higher.
Apart from 330 patients in ICUs and 124 on ventilators, 1,046 occupied beds in high dependency units. As of January 24, when the State had 3,62,487 active cases, the highest in the third wave, 138 patients were on ventilators. While 442 had occupied ICU beds, 1,032 had occupied high dependency unit beds.
Anoop Amarnath, member of Karnataka’s COVID critical care support unit (CCSU), who heads the Department of Geriatric Medicine at Manipal Hospitals, said a combination of advanced age and comorbidities is a major risk factor for mortality.
“In some cases, especially those where case severity was high — as evidenced by high levels of inflammatory markers, lung involvement through a HRCT and oxygen requirement — Delta strain features were seen. This shows that although Omicron may have been the predominant strain in this wave, Delta has not completely gone away. It is also important to look into the immunisation status of the mortality cases,” the doctor said.
