Higher fatality
rates were recorded among people aged 60 or below with no pre-existing comorbid
conditions during the peak of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to the first, an analysis
of official data has revealed.

The explosion
of cases in the second wave, which saw India report record single-day
infections, has largely been attributed to the more virulent Delta variant of
the coronavirus. However, there is little publicly available data to determine
the variant’s role in the increased death rates among patients without comorbidities,
according to a Bloomberg Quint report.

The report
analysed data from West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, saying those are the
only major states to provide systemic data on comorbidities among those that
died of the infection.

According to
the data, patients without comorbidities that died due to COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu
and West Bengal saw a three-fold increase at the peak of the second wave in the
period between April and May, 2021.

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23.9% of
all COVID deaths in Tamil Nadu during the second wave were of those patients without any underlying
conditions, up from 7.6% in the first wave. That share increased
to 26.2% in the week ending May 31.

In West
Bengal, over half of all deaths in this period were of patients without
comorbidities, with a total of 28.3% of all COVID deaths by May 31 being of
people without any pre-existing conditions. In Karnataka, 40.2% of all COVID-related
deaths were of patients with no comorbidities in the week ending May 31.

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All three
states had another thing in common, most non-comorbidity deaths were among people below the age of 60. That share was recorded at 62% in Karnataka, and 80%
in Tamil Nadu. West Bengal did not share an age-wise break-up of the data.

However, West
Bengal’s higher death rate among people without comorbidities can be down to a
higher number of younger people getting infected, Arjun Dasgupta, president of the
West Bengal Doctor’s Forum, told IndiaSpend.

” In the
second wave, it’s the younger people who suffered the most. This has definitely
to do with vaccination. The elderly people had received either one or both
doses of the vaccine and remained more protected,” he said.