Covid-19: Average of four fatalities reported in August every day

PANAJI: The state has reported an average of four Covid deaths each day this month. The first 19 days of August alone have witnessed 79 Covid mortalities.
Staggered reporting of deaths by the directorate of health services has brought to light as many as nine Covid mortalities on a single day- independence day- August 15.
The 79 deaths in August have already surpassed the total Covid mortalities reported over the last two months - four in June and 41 in July.
A doctor treating Covid patients attributed the high deaths to comorbidities and late reporting.
“People are presenting with severe disease and several are coming in late. Most of the mortalities are among the old, those with comorbidities and the immune compromised. There are also young patients with comorbidities. Patients even in their late 20’s have come in with diabetes,” the doctor said.
“One of the treatment methods is steroids, but these cause the diabetes to rise. Steroids are lifesaving. If the patient is very critical you wouldn’t hesitate to give steroids, but this in turn can cause rise in sugar,” the doctor explained.
Another doctor said it becomes complicated to treat those with high diabetes and hypertension as they have to manage sugar besides treating the patient for Covid.
“Doctors have to manage the comorbidities and ensure that one drug doesn’t interact with the other. There are many minute things that need to be observed and taken care of. The patients’ doses have to be adjusted. A cascade is sort of triggered in the body where one thing leads to another. There are multiple things happening at the cellular level and at the level of the lungs. A person with no comorbidities is simpler to treat for Covid,” the doctor said.
“The directorate of health services reporting Covid patients as brought dead in the daily Covid health bulletin is a worrying sign. It either means they’re not receiving treatment on time, that contact tracing isn’t being carried out effectively or that home isolation is not working,” a government official said.