Case fatality rate declines in Bengaluru even as COVID-19 cases rise

A senior IAS officer working in COVID-19 management said that there has been a significant improvement in Bengaluru, in the last three weeks where the case fatality rate was concerned.
Case fatality rate declines in Bengaluru even as COVID-19 cases rise

Bengaluru has seen a massive surge of COVID-19 cases in the past month and while the positivity rate (positive cases per 100 tests) has been climbing, data shows that the case fatality rate (deaths per 100 cases) has been steadily declining.

Out of the total 12,509 cumulative cases, 7594 (more than half) of them have come in the last eight days. With a total of 1,53,123 tests conducted in Bengaluru till date, the positivity rate stands at 8.17%.

Data presented by the State COVID-19 War Room shows that accounting for the last 30 days, the positivity rate for Bengaluru has been at 14.1% way more than the state average of 8% for the same period. The same report finds that the positivity rate for Bengaluru for the last 7 days has been at 22.5% compared to the state average of 12%.

At the same time, with the total COVID-19 related deaths at 178 in the city, the case fatality ratio is at 1.76%.

Till date, Karnataka has seen a total of 470 COVID-19 deaths, of which 177 deaths were from Bengaluru. Karnataka’s average case fatality ratio is at 1.6% worse than that of Bengaluru which is at 1.76%.

This is contrasting to May 31 figures, when the case fatality ratio for COVID-19 for the IT capital was at 6.82% and the positivity rate was at 1.17%. At that time, the number of cases were 386 after 33,070 tests were conducted.

Even at the end of June, the stats were very different with Karnataka’s CFR at 1.6% and Bengaluru’s CFR at 2.1%.

Speaking to TNM, Dr Trilok Chandra, senior IAS officer, heading the COVID-19 Critical Care Support Committee, said there has been a significant improvement in the last three weeks.

“See case fatality in Bengaluru has come down if you see from three weeks back. The reason is two folds. One is that we had started a tele-ICU facility for Bengaluru district just like we were doing with all other districts and this has helped us a lot. Secondly, there has been an increase in case load due to increased testing leading to more asymptomatic patients coming in as well,” he told TNM.

However, when asked if the age group of patients testing positive played a part, he said that does not seem to be a major factor and the patients are well spread across all age groups.

The COVID-19 deaths per million for Karnataka as of JUly 8 is at 7.7 and the same for Bengaluru is at 18.4. 18.4 is the worst death per million figure for entire Karnataka with Ballari having a death per million figure of 14.5 at a distant second worst.

At the end of June, the death per million for COVID-19 patients per million population was at 4 for Karnataka while the same for Bengaluru was at 9.9.

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