Hospital infrastructure may be stressed if Covid-19 infections rise further

Rate of hospitalisation low so far, at less than 2%, but doctors caution against dropping guard

India’s hospital infrastructure may be put to test again if the rate of infection rises during the Omicron-led third Covid wave sweeping through the country. So far, the rate of hospitalisation remains low, at 1.5 to 2 per cent — less that two out of 100 people with Covid currently require to be hospitalised.

The country added 159,000 fresh cases in the last 24 hours (as of Sunday morning).

Ritu Garg, zonal director, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, compares her experiences of the two waves. In mid-April, her hospital had 80 patients admitted when the case tally in Delhi was 1,500. Now,