Pune: COVID cases to cross 2 Lakh mark in a month; huge shortage of hospital beds, ventilators projected
Sumit Singh
Pune, 24 July 2020: As per a projection by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the total number of Coronavirus Disease (COVID19) patients in Pune city will cross the two lakh mark in the next one month and there will be major of a shortage of hospital beds as well as ventilators.
Pune Mayor Murlidhar Mohol tweeted the projection report which states that the total number will reach 60,328 (active cases 27,147) on July 31, which will increase to 108589 (active cases 48,865) on August 15. The report further states that by August 31 the total cases will reach 203270 which includes 91,471 active cases.
According to the report, there will be a major shortage of beds including those in Intensive Care Units (ICU). There will be a shortage of ventilators also. PMC will be falling short of 66,498 isolation beds without oxygen, 7082 isolation beds with oxygen, 4065 ICU beds and 1982 ventilators on August 31 (see chart above).
In the last 24 hours, a total of 817 people were discharged from hospitals after being cured of COVID19 in Pune city. Also, 1479 new patients were detected while 29 people died today. Swab samples of 5747 people have been collected for COVID tests. Pune has become one of the highest testing cities in the country with 2,35,451 tests till now.
According to PMC, the total number of Coronavirus positive patients till date has reached 45,544 out of which 26,725 have been cured while 1133 have died. There are still 17686 active patients undergoing treatment in various hospitals. They include 663 critical patients out of which 102 are on ventilator support.
PMC officials said that as the number of beds in hospitals is limited (see chart below), more COVID Care Centres are being established in different parts of the city. A new facility has come up in Viman Nagar (with 3200 beds), while Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) has issued tender for 800 beds at Balewadi.
PMC Commissioner Vikram Kumar didn’t respond to query from Punekarnews.in on the projected COVID cases in the city.
The current count of COVID19 patients in the state of Maharashtra is 3,57,117. Today, 9615 patients have been tested as positive while 278 died. Also, 5714 patients have been cured today. Till now 1,99,967 people have been cured while 13,132 have died. There are still 1,43,714 active patients in the state.
According to the Union Health Ministry, the number of Coronavirus positive patients has reached 1,287,945 across the country. Out of this, 817,208 have been cured and discharged from hospitals while 30,601 people have died and one patient has migrated out of the country. There are still 440,135 active patients undergoing treatment in hospitals across the country.
