Telangana hospitals see rapid rise in covid cases, hospitalisations

Hyderabad: Hospital admissions of Covid-19 patients in Telangana on Wednesday registered their single largest daily spurt with 95 people getting admitted to various hospitals with Covid since the arrival of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus in the state.

The number of Covid patients in hospitals in the state on Wednesday stood at 1,673, up from 1,578 on Tuesday. On January 1, the number of Covid patients in hospitals, both private and government, stood at 1,229. In all, 444 more hospital beds are now occupied by Covid patients than at the beginning of this year.

During this same period, Telangana recorded 17,879 Covid-19 cases and the increase in the number of hospital beds by Covid patients represents a 2.48 per cent rise from January 1 to January 12.

This is much higher than the estimates that were regularly projected by the state health officials who have been consistently saying that about 10 per cent of all infected people will have moderate symptoms and a mere 1 per cent of all cases would likely to require hospitalisation, which would have meant an increase in Covid patient bed occupancy by around 178 since January 1.

“The real challenge with respect to hospital admissions,” a senior government doctor said on Wednesday, “is that it is not enough just to count new cases every day. What needs to be looked at is how each of these patients is doing after the first five days and up to 10 days. It is the second five days after the infection is detected that will be crucial.”

Hospital admissions on the rise – Occupied beds

Jan 1

Regular beds – 319

Oxygen beds – 497

ICU beds – 413

Total beds – 1,229

Jan 12

Regular beds – 564

Oxygen beds – 654

ICU beds – 455

Total beds – 1,673