On Monday, Tamil Nadu reported 17 COVID-19 deaths, taking the death toll to 286. The state health department had ordered oxygen pipes and cylinders to be placed in out-patient clinics also to make sure “zero delay” in giving treatment to people coming with low levels of oxygen (hypoxia), which is one of the most common complaints in younger infected patients.

The state recorded 1,562 fresh cases, out of them 1,149 cases are in Chennai, taking the case total tally to 33,229. The new cases included 42 returnees to several parts of TN that includes 22 cases from Maharashtra, 9 cases from Qatar and 3 cases from Kuwait. On Monday, 3 of the 17 people reported dead had no co-morbidities.

Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said that death reviews revealed that many people could have been saved if were brought earlier to the hospital. She further said that more than 88% patients are asymptomatic and develop no complications. But around 9% of them need high flow oxygen. Few patients, who look visibly fine, collapse even before are wheeled into the emergency room. The state had ordered medical college hospitals, surrounding hospitals and urban health centres to make sure the availability of oxygen at the out-patient clinics too.

Data has shown that approximately one fifth of the patients had died within 24 hours with few of them within 10 minutes of admission. Senior doctors stated that people with severe acute respiratory infection generally develop septic shock and multi-organ failure. Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital dean Dr R Jayanthi, said that in several patients they don’t see any progression, they arrest before anything can be done.

Also, doctors have found that placing such patients early on ventilator does not help. Infectious diseases expert Dr V Ramasubramanian said that above 90% of these people put on invasive ventilators could not be resuscitated. Instead, many other patients do well with early non-invasive ventilation or with even high flow oxygen. The profile of the disease is changing and they are seeing more cases and complications in the elderly and vulnerable people. He further said that we should ensure to protect them.

Chennai’s neighboring districts had more cases than other districts – Chengalpet reported 134 cases, Kancheepuram reported 18 cases and Tiruvallur reported 57 cases. Also, Vellore reported 33 cases, Tuticorin 26 cases, Kallakuruchi 20 cases, Tiruvannamalai 11 cases and Cuddalore 10 cases. Nineteen other districts had a single-digit increase in COVID-19 cases.

Out of the 15,413 patients kept under isolation and treatment, 11,817 patients were in Chennai. Most government medical colleges in the city are nearly above their capacity. Also private hospital’s two branches of Apollo Hospitals, MIOT Hospital, Kauvery Hospital, Dr Kamatchi Memorial and Noble Hospital did not have any available beds, as per the state website (https://covid.uhcitp.in/status/dashboard).

At the Apollo Hospitals in Vanagaram and Greams Road, all the 17 ventilators were occupied. At the Sri Ramachandra Hospital, 258 beds of the 300 beds were occupied and all ten ICU beds were occupied and three out of six ventilators were also in use. Several other hospitals had the ICU beds vacant and ventilators were also not in use.

528 people were cured and discharged, taking the total number of recovered people to 17,527 at the end of the day.

Source: ET Healthworld