BHUBANESWAR: Even as new Covid-19 cases dropped below 1000 for the second consecutive day on Tuesday, a recent study says Odisha will top the list of Empowered Action Group (EAG) states in adding more cases and fatalities during the period from August 11 to September 10.
With around 7% population of the EAG states, Odisha is expected to contribute 41% of the projected Covid cases and 73% of the projected fatalities.
According to the study by Jeevan Raksha, an initiative technically supported by Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), the country is projected to add around eight lakh new cases and 11,078 deaths during the period and the EAG states will contribute around 23% cases and 21% deaths.
While among the mega states, Kerala is likely to contribute 50% of total new cases and 35% of Covid death, among the nine EAG states, 85% of the new cases are expected to come from Assam and Odisha. The EAG states are likely to add 46,674 cases and 2146 deaths.
The study found the Covid cases per million population in the State has increased from 7,541 to 21,335 and death per million is up from 43 to 143 during April 10 and August 10.
Covid infection has grown by only 4% adding around 40,000 cases and the active cases have dropped by nearly 50% from 19,425 to 9813 during the last one month. Death toll also increased by 34% - from 4978 to 6683 during the period.
If the same growth rate continues, Odisha is likely to add 19,000 more new cases and 1,582 deaths in the next one month. However, the average daily caseload has reduced from 6,510 in April to 1,718 in July and it is expected to go down further to 635 by August-end, the study stated.
Although 88% of the EAG population live in Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, these states collectively contributed only around 13% of Covid cases in last one month.
Convener of Jeevan Raksha Mysore Sanjeev said the primary reason for the disproportionate share of Covid cases was under-reporting and these states have collectively under-reported over one lakh cases and 3000 deaths in July.
A comprehensive analysis to understand the key drivers for surge being concentrated in only a few states like Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha and Assam indicated that the states are practicing Covid appropriate governance with high data integrity.
"Around only 1% population of Odisha have health insurance cover under non-government schemes. The State reported 67,468 cases in July of which 1,356 people (2%) sought insurance cover for Covid treatment. The reported case and insurance claim is relatively proportionate to the health insurance coverage. But the insurance claim for Covid treatment is abnormally high in mega states which validate under-reporting of cases and deaths," he clarified.
While 4,047 people claimed insurance in Rajasthan that disclosed only 1,245 cases as many as 5,858 claims were reported in Madhya Pradesh, which reported 2,024 cases. Similarly, Uttar Pradesh recorded 2,334 cases whereas 6,690 people sought insurance cover for Covid treatment in July.
Experts, however, suggested the States to focus on qualitative testing to contain the spread of infection and prevent third wave. “The governments will have to do more targeted RT-PCR tests instead of just making out numbers with rapid antigen tests. Odisha is likely to witness further decline in daily caseload and death toll in the coming weeks provided the same rigour for containing the spread of virus is maintained,” Sanjeev added.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health PK Mohapatra said, the new cases may be within the range, but Covid fatalities will be less than that of the projected figure as the backlog data being released now will be cleared by end of this month.