BHUBANESWAR: More than 50 per cent (pc) of Covid patients who lost their lives during the third wave in Odisha were unvaccinated. As many as 628 people have succumbed to the disease so far this year. Health department sources said 50 pc of the deceased had not taken Covid vaccine and of the rest 50 pc, 30 pc had got single dose and 20 pc were double dose vaccinated. People with comorbidities irrespective of vaccination status accounted for around 80 pc of the deaths this time.
On Thursday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had claimed that 92 pc of people who died of Covid in the first two months of the year in the country was unvaccinated.A senior health official said since vaccine coverage is better in Odisha as compared to several other states, the number of unvaccinated age-appropriate people is less. Still a significant number of senior citizens, who had not turned up for vaccination for some reason or the other have succumbed to the disease, he said.
However, the vaccines have significantly reduced the risk of death from Covid-19 and the real-time data on vaccine effectiveness during the third wave has shown much better results compared to the efficacy data of the vaccines generated in laboratory-controlled settings, he added. Even as the State government claimed that the Omicron surge was better contained compared to other states and Odisha has been reporting less than 200 new cases for the last five days, there has been no let-up in fatalities.
On an average five a day, 27 persons have died of Covid-19 during the period. Barring March 3, deaths were reported on the rest four days pushing the daily case fatality rate (CFR) to 4.68 pc. Meanwhile, Odisha logged 128 new cases from across 19 districts in the last 24 hours, the lowest in the last one year. Of the fresh cases, 22 were of the 0-18 years age group. Eleven districts did not report any new cases. The active cases dropped to 1,715, the lowest since March last year, after 330 patients recovered on Friday. Three districts - Keonjhar, Dhenkanal and Kalahandi have less than 10 active cases each.
VIRUS STATS
Less than 200 new cases in last 5 days
No new cases in 11 districts
No let-up in fatalities though