Madhya Pradesh crosses 4,000-mark in COVID-19 cases; 232 dead

Just ahead of the completion the third lockdown period, Madhya Pradesh has crossed 4,000-mark in COVID-19 positive cases. As of Wednesday, the state has 4,173 confirmed cases, more than half of them (2,107) coming from the mega hotspot of Indore.

The state has till now reported 232 deaths of which 95 have been reported from Indore. The second highest contributor to fatality is Ujjain that has reported 45 deaths, though the number of positive cases there is just 269. State capital Bhopal, another major hotspot, has till now reported 858 positive cases with 35 deaths, the state health department said in its daily bulletin on Wednesday.

Madhya Pradesh has one of the highest fatality rates in the country at 5.5 per cent, considerably higher than the national average of 3.2 per cent. Also the positivity rate (total positive cases out of the total tested samples) at 4.9 per cent is higher than the national average of 4 per cent.

One positive factor is that the recovery rate in the state is also quite good with 2,004 out of the 4,173 patients (48 per cent) already recovered and discharged.

Also, the rate of increase of positive cases seems to have accelerated in the state with the latest 1,000 cases being detected in just eight days while the second and third 1,000 cases took ten and nine days respectively. MP had reached the 1,000 case mark on April 16; 2,000 mark on April 26; and 3,000 mark on May 5.

The scope of the pandemic has also expanded area wise in the state, with as many as 42 of the 52 districts having positive cases, though 22 of these districts have only cases in single digits.

Health activists and opposition Congress have been constantly attacking the government for “trying to conceal details and data” related to the pandemic. The latest data to go off the state health bulletin is the figure of critical and stable cases. On May 5, suddenly, the number of critical cases had shown a jump to 241 from 61, most of the cases being from Indore. However, the Indore chief medical and health officer had attributed the sudden spike in cases reported in bulletin to technical error.

Earlier, from April 27, the state health department has stopped giving the number of samples pending for tests. Now, the department shares only the number of tests completed, which currently stands at 85,093.

CM directs increase in number of beds to 1 lakh

In a move that might indicate the state government’s apprehensions about continuing spike in the cases, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday directed that the number of beds reserved for COVID-19 patients should be increased to one lakh. The current number of beds reserved is 35,000. In a review meeting, the CM said that though in the present situation the number of beds is enough, it should be increased to one lakh. He also said that chief medical and health officers of all districts should provide more efficient services.