Mere increment in the recovery rate isn’t enough when death rate is not curbed – Public Health Expert on COVID-19
Well, one can celebrate over the recovered patients but at the end of the day, the virus will be judged by the number of lives it took.
Current Corona-meter of India
World rank – 4
Total cases – 549,197
Total recovered – 321,774
Total deaths – 16,487
New Cases in the last 24 hours – 19,906
New Deaths in the last 24 hours – 410
The President of Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) Dr. K. Srinath Reddy said – “The Narendra Modi government should focus on controlling deaths due to COVID-19, and not only on the recovery rate that boosts optimism.
As of 549,197 total cases, 321,774 patients have recovered so far. The recovery rate stands at 58 percent which indeed marks a silver lining against the fight with the novel coronavirus. The health minister has been continuously displaying the recovery rates across every media platform.
PHFI is a public-private initiative for strengthening training, research and policy development in the area of public health, set up in 2006. Its President later says – “While it is good for public morale to show optimistic numbers, we must recognize that a cumulative recovery rate is bound to grow over time. Early discharge policy, introduced recently, has also boosted the estimated recovery rate.”
The revised discharge policy released in May states – ill patients can be discharged from the hospital 10 days after the symptoms are diagnosed. And they can be allowed to go home without testing if there is no fever and no need for oxygen therapy for three days.
However, in the earlier policy, a symptom-showing man would not be left from the hospital until he is not tested negative on the 14th day. Hence, the beds were occupied by those who didn’t need it in actual, while the needed ones were deprived of the facilities.
“Instead of focusing on fuzzy intermediate indicators, which may cloud our vision as they are reported frequently, India must strive to assess and count the actual deaths – within and out of hospitals,” said Reddy, a member of the executive group of the steering committee of the World Health Organization-led solidarity trial on COVID-19.
Reddy also said, “It is expected that ultimately over 95% of patients will recover, fully or partially. Countries which experienced an earlier surge than India have reported even higher recovery rates than ours – particularly Denmark at 95 percent recovery rate, while Italy at 84 percent and France at 72 percent.”