By Sue-Ann Wayow
FROM September 2020 to May this year, there has been a sharp increase in people without pre-existing medical conditions being hospitalised as a result of Covid-19.
In September, 36% of Covid-19 hospitalised cases had no comorbidities compared to 61.4% in May, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram on Saturday.
And the number of active cases in need of hospital care increased almost 3% from 5.3% in September to 8% in May.
At the press conference hosted by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Dr Parasram compared Covid-19 information from last year September to this year May.
He said, “The ones without comorbidities have shorter hospital stays, they usually have better prognosis and the ones with comorbidities have been having longer stays and worse prognosis in the long term.”
For persons with diabetes and hypertension, the data remained almost the same for the period but there was an increase in asthma patients and chronic kidney disease patients also increased in May.
The average daily number of patients in hospital jumped from 98 in September to 316 in May, Dr Parasram said.
In May, 49.5% of Covid-19 patients in home self-isolation were asymptomatic. This means that more patients at home were experiencing symptoms, an increase from September’s 35.7%. In May, 50.5% of home self-isolation patients were symptomatic.
Dr Parasram said, “In May, it was noted that more people without comorbidities are requiring hospitalisation in contrast to September where the majority had pre-exiting medical conditions.
“The gender distribution remains equal throughout the epidemic, one half of persons in home isolation have symptoms in May, while one third of those people had symptoms in September and there has been not only an increase in the number of patients requiring hospital but also an increase in the percentage of active cases overall.”
