With the on-going festival season across India, the country has reported 83% increase in the number of deaths in the past week. As per the report released by World Health Organization’s (WHO) covid-19 weekly epidemiological update issued on Tuesday, India’s Covid 19 deaths are a major contributor to the rising tally of world’s covid death burden which rose by 8% last week.
The report said that the Covid 19 deaths increased by 50,000 more fatalities. The deaths rose by 50% from the South Asia region followed by European region at 12% and the Western Pacific region with 10%.
More than 246 million confirmed cases and nearly 5 million deaths have been reported across the world, as of October 31. The WHO document said that the number of deaths in India accounted for 79% of the new weekly deaths in the region.
Public health experts in India said that increase in the number of deaths is the result of large gatherings across the country during the festive season. Dr Manoj Sharma, senior consultant, internal medicine at Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj, Delhi said that in the last month, people celebrated Durga Puja and Eid which led to large gatherings and some people didn’t follow the Covid 19 guidelines. And even now, people are gathering in large numbers for Diwali which will significantly increase the risk of the number of cases and deaths related with Covid 19.
He said that wearing a face mask is really important. And if the timeline is to be noted, after a few days of Durga Puja and Eid, the number of cases tend to increase.
“Reinforcement of using masks and following social distancing norms are very important to keep the number of cases under control,” he said.