Covid fatality rate higher in men than women: Data

Kolkata: State health department data shows the fact that women are safer compared to men from Covid as around 33.2 per cent of deaths were females and 66.8 per cent were males. It also suggests that women have been infected with Covid comparatively in less numbers than men. During the previous wave as well the fatality rate was lesser among women.

Among the overall infected patients the percentage of deaths is the highest in the age group 61-75 with 41.6 percent followed by 25.8 percent which is among the people in the age group 46-60. Interestingly, the percent of deaths is around 22.7 percent among those infected patients who are above 25.

According to a study carried out by the health department in the past few weeks, nearly 90 percent of those who died of Covid in Bengal in the past few weeks were elderly people and they had comorbidity issues while only 7.8 per cent of people who died in Covid were between 31-45 years.

The percentage of deaths remains around 1.8 when age of the patients vary between 16-30. In case of patients in the age bracket 0-15, the fatality rate stands at 0.3 percent.

A 6-member committee was earlier constituted by the state health department to examine the exact causes behind all these Covid deaths which occurred over a span of three weeks.

The committee has submitted its report to the Swasthya Bhawan. The Committee also suggested that tests must be performed on the elderly people if they show some symptoms. In case of elderly comorbid patients the deterioration occurs very fast after the infection.

The elderly people mostly required critical care support this time while the younger patients have taken treatment from home. Most of the infected patients have no such symptoms this time.

During the current surge of Covid infection, most of the patients admitted to the hospitals were elderly people.