India Coronavirus Dispatch: Recovery rate in West Bengal dips sharply

As Covid-19 cases spike across parts of the country, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai collectively account for about two thirds of India’s cases. Health infrastructure has been sorely tested and has led to a clash between private healthcare providers and the state and central establishment. What are hospitals bracing for in the months to come and where have fault lines shown up? Watch this interview with Shobana Kamineni, execu-tive vice-chairperson at the Apollo Hospitals Group and former president of CII, who says India would be lucky if it finishes at 1 crore cases of Covid-19 nationwide.

The recovery rate in West Bengal has gone downhill since the last two weeks, while the rate of infection has been increasing — and all these when the city is facing an acute shortage of beds in both gov-ernment and private hospitals. In the last two weeks, from 30 June to 14 July, Bengal’s discharge/recovery rate has fallen from 66.48 per cent to 60 per cent. In Kolkata, it has nosedived from 64 per cent to 56 per cent, according to state government data. Read More