THE SECOND WAVE

With cases of Covid reinfections surfacing in the country, is India’s low case fatality rate (CFR) really any cause for comfort?

- SONALI ACHARJEE

It was only a month since Apoorva Gupta, 37, had returned to her job at a public sector bank in Delhi, having recovered from a bout of Covid-19. Given the fact that she is diabetic, her illness had caused much panic among friends and family. She had been hospitalised for five days in early August after her oxygen count fell to 86 one night. But she had recovered on oxygen support and didn’t need intubation. “I returned home after I tested negative and took 10 days off from work to recover my strength,” says Gupta. But in the last week of August, after attending office for two days, she suddenly reported symptoms of fever and a dry cough again.

It was all remarkably similar, but lower in intensity to what she had experienced when she was Covid positive. “I didn’t even think of doing a Covid test again, but the doctor advised me to do one after a few days.” The result was positive. “I had to be isolated again, which was very difficult. But this time, the fever and cough went away in just three days. The stress reduced then,” she explains. Two weeks later, she tested negative.