Hyderabad: With COVID-19 wreaking havoc world over, the epicenter of the pandemic now seems to have shifted to the United States, where the number of deaths is increasing by the day.
However, what is more worrying is the fact that the fatality rate seems much higher in the United States than in China, where the outbreak first started.
According to initial estimates based on the cases from China, it was said that as many as 80 per cent of those contracting COVID-19 show only mild symptoms and do not necessarily require hospitalisation.
With essential medical supplies like personal protective equipment (PPEs) and testing kits in short supply all over the world, the global trend has been to advise only those showing serious symptoms to be admitted.
Now, due to this factor, the number of COVID-19 patients actually being hospitalised is much lesser than the actual number of the people actually affected.
Read: COVID-19: Should India test more?
All around the world, only hospitalised patients are generally counted as COVID-19 cases. And because it is the ones showing serious symptoms who are hospitalised and eventually at a higher risk to die than others, the death rate might actually be a lot higher than what it actually is.
Another reason is that of testing itself. It has been seen that many developing nations are lagging behind in the tests to population ratio. Generally, only those showing strong symptoms are tested. As a result, if an infected person only shows mild symptoms and does not approach the authorities, he might recover and will never be counted in the official number of figures.
Hence once again, the fatality rate might seem higher than what it actually is.
The reality is, a vast majority of the population might already be infected with the virus, and may not even know themselves.
Hence, the need of the hour is proper testing and accurate numbers, so that the people do not go into panic mode looking at seemingly overestimated death rates.
