Stringent precautions needed
A medico body had recently cautioned that 98 percent population in Kashmir valley is still susceptible to the novel coronavirus. This simply means that only two percent of the valley’s population is immune to the deadly infection.
The findings had been concluded after a sero-surveillance study was conducted in Pulwama district of Kashmir valley by ICMR in May and the survey revealed that 2 percent of the population surveyed showed antibodies in their blood.
The presence of antibodies means that the person had infection in the recent past and is now immune to the virus. Though the survey was based on a sample size of 400, but only eight samples showed evidence of antibodies in their blood.
The findings of the study showed that most of the people are not immune to the disease and herd immunity is still far away. This means that almost the entire population in Kashmir valley can fall prey to the Covid-19 infection at one or the other point of time.
Ironically, Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed a vast surge in terms of Covid deaths over the past few weeks now. The past two weeks have been pointing out that the number of covid deaths is increasing at a rapid pace and even a minor kid also became a victim of the deadly virus last week. Till today we had recorder 91 deaths and the number of positive cases too is witnessing a surge with every passing day.
Researches across the globe in the past three months have consistently shown that the infection affects people differently based on their age and pre-existing health conditions, but what is being witnessed here and especially in Kashmir valley is that most of the deaths taking place are being attributed to coronavirus infections.
During the past two weeks several patients who had history of either road mishaps or some other trauma were also counted as covid-19 causalities after their death. This phenomenon has led to a scary situation here with people believing that hospitals here are now proving to be a major cause for the spread of the disease.
Though observing the data collected by medical students experts have suggested that most of the deaths among the 90 Covid-19 causalities in J&K were aged above 60 years and had been suffering from co-morbidities.
The data also points out that the infection fatality rate for Covid-19 patients aged 60 and above, based on the same parameters, could be as high as 12 percent. This is an alarming sign as most of the affected patients in the region have been reported in the higher age groups.
Therefore, one has to take extra precautions and offer more shield to the elderly people so that they could be saved from the pandemic hitting them hard.
KV Network
