Growing Cases Among Elderly A Worry, Swift Care Must: Docs

The percentage of senior citizens falling sick with Covid has been increasing steadily in Maharashtra over the past 15 days, a reading of the daily analytical reports from the state’s Medical Education and Drug Department showed.

- Umesh.Isalkar

Pune:

The trend, experts said, is worrying as it’s the elderly who are more likely to slip into severe disease, eventually needing hospitalisation. They have called for increased focus on healthcare needs of this age group, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions that place them at higher risk of serious Covid. Most of these patients are currently in home isolation, but symptoms can worsen if early care is inadequate.

“Despite having a relatively higher younger population, Covid cases are steadily increasing among the state’s elderly population, which might put strain on healthcare infrastructure over the next few days if they are not tackled in time,” a senior health official said.

If the population in different age groups of the state and the absolute number of Covid cases registered in these groups are taken into account, the younger population shows it’s more affected as their overall share in the general population is higher.

Going by the state’s report, Covid has affected 17% of the total population in the 60-90 age bracket. But when we break down the 71.08 lakh Covid cases into age groups, about 42% of the cases are in the 6090 bracket, the report stated.