Chennai: The severity of the COVID-19 outbreak during the third wave is low as compared to the second wave and the death rate has remained at an average of one individual succumbing to 1,000 cases, a senior Tamil Nadu government official said on Sunday.
Unvaccinated individuals and those eligible to receive the 'precautionary booster dose' also pose a risk to contracting the contagion and this has emerged as a larger point of view of the medical experts who met here, Health Department Principal Secretary J Radhakrishnan said here.
"The death rate during the second wave of COVID-19 was 1:100 and during the third wave, it was 1:1,000. That is, if there are 30,000 cases reported, we have 30 people succumbing to the virus," he said. "The view of medical experts is that the severity of the disease is low this time... And this (death rate) is an example to that," he told reporters.
Elaborating further, he said, "Even those who succumb to the virus, nearly 80 percent of them comprise unvaccinated people and those who have received a single dose of vaccination".
"Unvaccinated (people) comprise 68 percent of the deaths while those who received a single dose of vaccination comprise 12 percent. Today, we had a meeting of health experts and their broader view is that the risk of contracting the virus is similar to those who have not received the vaccination and those who have completed nine months after receiving the second dose and are waiting for a booster dose," he said.