Age distribution is same in second wave but Oxygen demand is high says ICMR DG

Amid covid case surge in India, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said there is no difference between the first wave and the second wave.

He said that 70% of the infected patients are above 40 years of age in the both waves.

“Higher requirement of oxygen was found in this wave. There is no difference in the percent of death between the first wave and second wave from the data we have,” said ICMR DG Dr. Balram Bhargava, ANI reports.

He further said that the holed up population continues to be more vulnerable to be admitted to the hospital and have problems.

“If you see the symptoms, severity is very less this time. In this wave, we have witnessed more cases of breathlessness while in the last wave, symptoms like dry cough, joint pain, headaches were more,” Bhargava said.

Accoding to the DG ICMR listed three main reasons for the higher transmissibility of Covid-19 – laxity, Covid inappropriate behavior and and various unidentified mutation.

“We have had tremendous amount of laxity , the Covid-19 appropriate behavior and various unidentified mutation, of them some are of concern —UK, Brazilian and South African variants, which have been demonstrated to have higher transmissibility,” said Dr. Balram Bhargava.

“We have also found a double mutant in India but the higher transmissibility of this is not established.” he added