Covid-19 in India: 96% of patients on oxygen support are unvaccinated, says BMC chief

A massive 96 per cent of 1,900 Covid patients on oxygen support in 186 Mumbai hospitals have not been vaccinated, said Iqbal Chahal, the commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

According to him, only unvaccinated Omicron patients need oxygen support at the hospitals.

Revealing the current situation in Mumbai, Chahal told the media that though active cases have crossed the 100,000-mark, the death rate is just around one a day. Mumbai has seen 17 deaths over the last 16 days.

The civic body chief said there was no need to impose a lockdown in Mumbai at this stage as the bed occupancy rate, oxygen requirement and Covid-19 related deaths are low.

The city has 22,222 beds for Covid-19 patients in 186 government and private hospitals. And of the 11,912 oxygen beds, less than 2,000 are currently occupied. Similarly, of the 2,636 ICU beds, just 671 were occupied and of the 1,407 ventilator beds, about 420 were occupied.

“Even though Mumbai has 100,000 active cases, just 10 tonnes of oxygen is being used,” he said. “In the second Covid wave, oxygen production by the civic body was zero, but this time we have 400 tonnes in storage and 200 tonnes of our own manufacturing.” Nearly 85 per cent of hospital beds are also vacant, he revealed.

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Confirming Chahal’s comments, Dr Gautam Bhansali of the Bombay Hospital, who is the coordinator of all private hospitals in Mumbai, said that the majority of patients on oxygen beds were unvaccinated citizens in the 40-plus age category. This revealed the importance of vaccination for all, he said.

According to Dr Om Srivastava, a member of the Covid-19 task force, many of the patients appeared to have rushed to take the vaccine after the recent surge in cases.

• India