Pandemic spreads to Tier II and Tier III cities

The country had reported 3,86,452 daily new cases, with Maharashtra still at the top, accounting for 21.6% of the cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 10% cases and 7.8% cases from Delhi.

The Covid-19 pandemic has spread to Tier II and Tier III cities in the country. Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, said during a Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) briefing on Friday that not only were states reporting highest peaks but they were also showing higher growth trajectory.

Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS, said, the pandemic was going to Tier II and Tier III cities. There was a need to train health care professionals in Covid-19 management in these cities, districts and Primary Health Care centres to deal with the pandemic, Guleria said at the briefing. AIIMS was working with 14 regional centres of excellence to mentor and train them, Guleria said.

There was an atmosphere of fear in the Tier II and III cities and there was a need to demystify it for doctors with a detailed clinical management protocol, Agarwal said.

Guleria warned that the rate of rise was rapid and cases were doubling faster. With average patient stay at hospital of seven to 10 days with low turnaround time, there would be a strain on the hospital infrastructure, Guleria cautioned. If cases keep increasing it would become a challenging situation, he said.

The pandemic in the second wave started with Maharashtra and then went to Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and now Uttar Pradesh, so the pandemic is now widespread across the country.

The country had reported 3,86,452 daily new cases, with Maharashtra still at the top, accounting for 21.6% of the cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 10% cases and 7.8% cases from Delhi.

Cases in Goa were rising at 10.9%, Odisha’s positive cases were growing at 8.1%, Karnataka growth rate was 7.5%, West Bengal at 6.9%, Kerala at 6.6% and Andhra Pradesh’s growth rate at 6.1%.

UP had climbed up to the second position in the country, with daily cases going up from 4,105 cases to 34,334 average daily cases in a couple of weeks. There was a steep rise in daily death rate in the country from 77 a day in the first week of March to 3,498 in April. Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala accounted for 75% of the deaths. Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have started reporting more deaths in the last four weeks.