Rural Punjab loses more lives to COVID-19 than urban pockets

Rural areas in Punjab is recording a case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.8% against 0.7% in the state’s urban areas, with experts attributing this to ignorance of early symptoms, self-medication or treatment through registered medical practitioners and late arrival in hospital.

The spike in rural areas COVID-19 infections can be pointed towards the returning migrants, who had only recently returned to the cities, only to run back to the safety of their villages. The lack of basic health facilities and medical personnel, test results taking a week to come, lack of oxygen, brittle supply chains that all rural residents face, that one can only sense a storm brewing on the horizon.

According to The Indian Express, health department records revealed that 84% of patients from rural areas arrive in hospital with severe COVID-19 symptoms, and most of them are without their RT-PCR test. The report highlights that high death rate in rural areas in a major contributor to Punjab’s CFR, which is currently 2.45% and is more than double the national CFR which is 1.12%.

Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district, which has 12.4 lakh rural population and 3.3 lakh urban population has seen just 63 deaths from January 1 to February 28 this year – an increase of 20% in death rate in two months. But from March 1 to April 27, in less than two months, the district recorded 337 deaths, which is an increase of 90% in deaths in less than two months. The report says that in Hoshiarpur, in March, 50% deaths took place due to late referral to the hospital and 50% patients had died within 24 hours after reaching the hospital.

“Similarly, Gurdaspur district, which has 16 lakh urban and 6.5 lakh rural population, has seen an increase of 65% in death rate from March 1 to April 27 by reporting 185 deaths against 14% increase from January 1 to February 28, when just 35 deaths were reported in two months,” it said. “Ludhiana, which has 20 lakh urban population against 14 lakh rural has recorded 1,322 deaths which is highest in the state during this pandemic till April 27. The district has reported 967 deaths till January 1 this year. In the past four months, 355 deaths were reported including 63 in the first two months, which is an increase of 6.5%, and 292 from March 1 to April 27, an increase of 28%.”

Officials said there is a huge need to make people aware in the rural areas where the majority of people are not wearing the mask while moving around and visiting each other’s place in the villages.

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The current second wave of infections has overwhelmed health facilities across the country. Hospitals have run out of beds and oxygen supplies are exhausted, leaving without access to a critical form of treatment. The average deaths per day are nearing 3,000 and the number continues to climb, pushing cremation facilities and cemeteries past their limits.