With 2,666 oxygen beds vacant in the city for Covid patients, which includes 1,020 beds at Government hospitals, is a sigh of great relief. Besides this 630 ICU beds, including 66 at Government hospitals are also available on Tuesday morning.
The vacancy of beds reported by Nagpur Municipal Corporation and continuous down trend in Covid positivity rate is not only soothing to the eyes of people, but also for the medical fraternity. The transmission might appear to have lowered, the asymptomatic spreader are still active and are being traced by NMC.
It is expected that these spreaders will be ‘properly’ treated by the civic authorities, so that the positivity graf does not rise again. Besides the oxygen and ICU beds, ventilator beds are also available with Government and private hospitals.
The load on these hospitals has decreased and regular OPDs for patients of other health problems can be started. During the last few months patients of other health problems were reluctant to visit hospitals due to fear of getting Corona infection. Only gynaecologists and paediatric units in most of the hospitals were operating as usual.
Another infection of mucormycosis is hovering over general people’s minds. Although this fungal infection is stated to be rare, the number of cases are increasing. Discussion about this fungal infection is again likely to add to fear psychosis, which had affected many during the Covid19 pandemic and very high mortality rate during the last three months.
A little clarity about Covid infection is being generated. However, more discussion with scientists is needed to remove fear prevalent among common people. Counseling by trained social workers and counsellors is still required, as those who lost their near and dear ones in the pandemic are still not out of the fear of the dreaded infection.
Lack of proper information about the virus, non-availability of exact treatment, shortage of beds and medicines, misleading information becoming viral on social media added to the confusion and fear.
Today 33 ventilator beds are available, including 3 in Government Hospitals for Covid patients.
The situation during the last three months should be an eye opener for the entire society. The number of positive person might have come below 1000 mark today, it should not result in people neglecting the protocol to be followed.
Use of masks, physical distancing, washing hands, proper sanitization MUST be followed for the next few months, maybe for a year, so as to prevent further transmission of the Corona 19 virus in original and mutated forms.
