Srinagar, Aug 1: The Covid19 Second Wave that is at its tailend currently in J&K has claimed more victims in four months than the First Wave did in the entire year it ensued for. However, in terms of the age groups it claimed as victims, there is minor variation only.
Between March 2020 to March 2021, officially considered the period of the First Wave, as many as 2011 people died due to SARS-CoV2 infection, data compiled by Health and Medical Education Department of J&K Government reveals. In the Second Wave, officially considered to have started from beginning of April 2021 upto July 2021, as many as 2337 people have lost life. In the recent-most four months, thus, the number of victims of SARS-CoV2 has surpassed the total number of victims in 12 months that preceded.
Additional Chief Secretary to J&K Government, Health and Medical Education, Atal Dulloo said that the new strains of the virus that affected J&K were seen to be “more transmissible”.
“Although in terms of causing severe disease, the new strains were not as much of a concern but because they turned out to be infecting a much higher number of people, we had a very steep rise in deaths,” he said.
The change in the strain of virus has been held responsible for the increased number of deaths by epidemiologists as well.
Prof S Saleem Khan, head department of social and preventive medicine at GMC Srinagar said that the new strains are often less virulent but more easily transmitted. “In this wave, we saw that we had the entire families affected. The infection spread fast and far and this caused a flare-up in deaths,” he said.
However, as was feared, there was no change in the age variable of the victims. In the First Wave, 84 percent of the victims were over 50 years of age in J&K. In the Second Wave, 80 percent of the victims were in that age group. Between Jammu and Kashmir divisions, there was a slight variation in the age group affected. In Kashmir, 84.2 percent of victims were over 50 years of age while in Jammu division, 76 percent of victims were in that age group, division-wise break-up of figures shows. In other words, in Jammu region, 24 percent of the victims of the pandemic were under 50 years while in Kashmir region, 16 percent of the victims were under 50 years of age.
The Additional CS said that the Government’s focus was on increasing the coverage of vaccines in order to “prevent all such deaths”.