NEW DELHI, Apr 21: The government that on Monday said the second wave of Coronavirus disease was “less severe” than the first wave last year, changed its stand on Wednesday claiming that the second wave was “more virulent” than the first.
India’s second wave of coronavirus is more virulent than the first wave as the country is witnessing twice the number of maximum active Covid-19 cases seen last year, the union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.
The difference, however, was in respect of the number of fatalities and the number of total positive cases.
“There are 21,57,000 active cases in India currently i.e. twice the number of maximum active Covid-19 cases last year,” Bhushan said in a press conference on Wednesday.
The Indian Council of Medical Research chief Dr Balram Bhargava and several other senior doctors had on Monday said India’s second wave of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) was “less severe” than the previous one in as far as fatalities are concerned.
Establishing the contrast, the ICMR director general said the only difference was shortness of breath which was higher among the patients this time as a higher requirement of oxygen was found in this wave.
The ICMR DG said there was no difference seen in the rate of fatalities between the first and the second wave. Of 641 admitted patients from September-November last year, 9.6% succumbed where from March-April, 9.7% died but the former group had 6,650 patients compared to 351 in the second.
On Wednesday, India witnessed a jump of 295,041 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 2,023 deaths in the last 24 hours, both figures are the highest ever since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the latest data released by the Union ministry of health and family welfare.
(Manas Dasgupta)