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A month after the Centre and States lifted the lockdown norms, allowing some public and business activity to resume, Telangana witnessed a spurt in the number of cases and deaths, with movement of people resulting in a spike in Covid-19 infections.
During this period, the total number of Covid-19 cases has gone up by nearly three times — from about 2,000 to over 6,000 — with the State relaxing norms in inter-State traffic movements and opening up the economy by allowing most businesses and organisations to resume their activities.
Active cases, which were about 500 on May 16, the day the lockdown was lifted partially, went up by five times to 2,531. The number of deaths, which was 34, went up by over five times to 195.
With criticism mounting for its low-test strategy, the State government has increased the number of tests per day. From about 300-500 tests a day, the number has touched 1,000 in the last few days.
Telangana announced a plan to conduct 50,000 tests in a span of 10 days in five Assembly constituencies in and around Hyderabad, where the maximum number of cases are being reported.
Age-wise break-up
One interesting attribute of the spike in cases (break-up available for 5,675 patients) is that about 60 per cent of the cases are reported from people in the productive age group of 21-50 years.
One-fourth of the total positive patients are in the age group of 21-35 years.
Doctors say this is a positive sign, as young patients are better placed physically to tackle the viral infection. With relatively lower co-morbidities and better immunity levels, patients in this age group can recover faster, without putting much pressure on the public healthcare infrastructure.
While 559 cases were reported in the age group of 21-25 years, 679 and 638 cases were reported in the age groups of 26-30 and 31-35 years, respectively.
The most vulnerable age group (65-90 years) has reported 380 cases.
While about 160 cases were reported in the age group of 0-5 years, children in the age group of 6-15 witnessed 290 cases.
Men seem to be more exposed to the viral infection, with 65 per cent of the total cases being reported among men.
Death patterns
As cautioned by doctors and scientists, people with co-morbidities are the most vulnerable to the infection. As many as 157 of the 192 deaths (for which data is available) had co-morbidities.
Nearly half of the deaths in the ‘patients with co-morbidity category’ had hypertension and diabetes mellitus. While 21 of them had diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases, another 22 had hypertension.
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