Doctor consultations up by 54% in a day amid COVID-19 surge: Practo

Amid a spurt in COVID-19 cases in the country, the virus-related doctor consultations saw a massive jump of over 50% in a single day on January 4, according to a report. The daily consultations have gone up more than 2.5 times since January 1, showed a report by healthcare company, Practo.

This is the highest single-day increase in doctor consultations in 120 days, since the decline of the deadly second wave, the report added. "More than 50% of all doctor consultations are for GPs and Pulmonologists with major concerns like fever, sore throat, headache, body pain, stuffy nose, Omicron spread, Covid-19 vaccine booster doses, and vaccines for children, among others," it further stated.

Elaborating further, the report also mentioned that around 85% of these queries have come from metro cities, some of which are witnessing a steady rise in the number of positive cases every day. At 132%, Mumbai saw the highest growth in GP-related consultations since January 1st,  followed by Kolkata (106%), Delhi NCR (95%), Bangalore (75%), Chennai (47%) and Hyderabad (42%). Queries in non-metro cities increased by 53% during the same time period. Over 50% of these consultations came from those in the age group 21-30, followed by 31-40 (40%), 41-50 (10%).

Practo's report was developed to understand the healthcare patterns of Indians amidst the outbreak of COVID-19 while adhering to stringent data security and privacy measures. "These insights have been created with aggregated and anonymised sets of data from our users who share their age and location with us which is optional," the company added.

“We have seen a massive surge in the number of Covid cases in the last one week indicating the start of a third wave. The festive season is one of the main reasons for the increase as people failed to follow Covid protocols and gatherings became super-spreader events. As seen during the first and second wave, telemedicine will continue to be a life saver, enabling people to reach out to medical professionals virtually. Digital healthcare companies like Practo are taking efforts to ensure that access to medical healthcare during these times is never a challenge for the people”, said Dr. Belliappa, a senior GP practicing on Practo.

Practo is the country’s leading integrated healthcare company, which connects the entire health ecosystem together – including patients, doctors, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, diagnostics, and other partners -- to generate exceptional value and service for all, especially the end consumers.

Meanwhile, India reported 90,928 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday. The daily positivity rate stands at 6.43 per cent while the weekly positivity rate stands at 3.47 per cent.

As many as 325 patients lost their lives taking the death toll in the country to 4,82,876. With this, the active caseload in the country stands at 2,85,401.

19,206 patients recovered from the disease during this period taking, the total number of recoveries in India to  3,43,41,009. The recovery rate currently is 97.81 per cent.