According to research by Goldman Sachs, on average, 1 in 7 Covid (14 percent) patients were hospitalised in India, during the second wave, higher than the western world where cumulatively 5 to 10  percent of Covid positive patients have been hospitalised.

US Epidemiology data presented by FDA, from early December-2020, also did show that weekly hospitalisation rates reached 15  percent in the US in the 2nd wave.

Although the overall bed occupancy for all COVID beds has dipped to 65  percent, ICU bed occupancy in key metros (especially in the South of India) remains critical, the report said.

Goldman Sachs said COVID fatalities have disproportionately been among the elderly population (less than 60 years) at 60  percent. If we were to include the adjacent cohort of 50 years, this proportion rises to 80 percent, given the multiple co-morbidities this population also suffers from, the report said.

The report said state governments have ramped up COVID bed capacity by over 3.3x in the past 75 days, led by higher allocations in both government and private facilities. In the 13 states tracked, COVID bed capacity rose from 146k in early March to 486k by the middle of May.

"We have seen COVID-related hospitalizations in India starting to dip over the past week and if the US experience is to go by, we could see significant improvements over the next month," Goldman Sachs said.

Drug and oxygen shortages seem to be easing, led by a combination of increased domestic production, repurposing alternate sources as well as expedited imports. The testing protocol has been diversified with the addition of allied testing such as C-RP, D-Dimer and CT Scans, to ease the load off RT-PCR capacity as well as serve as a cross-check given concerns around false negatives/lower sensitivity.

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