Of the total Covid-19 patients admitted to the Armed Police Force Hospital on Monday, over 65 percent are above 65 years. Most of the elderly Covid-19 patients at the hospital have underlying health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, renal problems, heart ailments, and cancer.

“We have 20 Covid-19 patients at the hospital currently,” said Dr Prabin Nepal, spokesperson of the hospital. “All of them are seriously ill and in need of proper medical care. They cannot be placed in home isolation.”

Delay in seeking medical care for Covid-19 patients with comorbidities by their family members puts patients from the said age group at higher risk of succumbing to the virus, doctors warn. Since the virus has been spreading at the community level, the level of severity and chances of death can increase several fold, they say.

“Most of the people who died of Covid-19 infections are elderly people and those with comorbidities,” Dr Niraj Bam, Covid-19 focal person at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital told the Post. “People are still delaying hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients. They are seeking hospital care only after the patients’ condition worsens. It will be difficult to save lives if there is delay in treatment of such patients.”

Despite the decline in the reported number of new cases in the last few days, the number of deaths has been on a rise.

On Monday, 13 people died of Covid-19 infection. The number was 11 on Sunday, nine on Saturday, 16 on Friday, 14 on Thursday, 12 on Wednesday and nine on Tuesday.

According to the administration at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, 133 infected patients have been receiving care at the hospital as of Monday. Of them, 45 patients are admitted to the intensive care unit and five are on ventilator support.

“Up to 20 new patients have been seeking admission every day at the hospital,” said Bam. “And most of them have underlying conditions.”

The third wave of the pandemic driven by Omicron saw patients and their families taking the new iteration of the virus lightly even though this variant spread fast and wide. Most compared Omicron to the Delta variant, which was dominant in the second wave of the pandemic, and felt safe in that the former had less severe symptoms. Many people took the infection and its symptoms as common cold and did not seek medical intervention further aggravating the condition of the infected, especially elderly people with comorbidities.

The public has stopped testing for the virus even when they are symptomatic and the authorities concerned have also discontinued contact tracing, testing and enforcing public health measures strictly.

“And the result is before all of us. Along with testing, the infection rate has also declined but the death rate has been increasing,” said Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, chief of the Clinical Research Unit at the Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital. “Only those who are aware of the risks of infection, and the chances of spreading the virus further have been seeking tests.”

Public health experts say that even if Omicron is less severe compared to the previous variants, it may still be lethal for the unvaccinated population and those with comorbidities. “The elderly population is susceptible to the worst possible effects the Omicron variant can have. If ignored by their children and not hospitalised on time, their chances of death are high,” said Pun. “Elderly people may not complain about the health problems they may be having with their children. So it’s the children’s duty to be extra attentive to their elderly family members during the pandemic and seek early medical care in case of infection.”

Along with seeking early care, they should also make sure that elderly parents are fully inoculated and receive booster shots, doctors say.

On Monday, 1,570 people tested positive for Covid-19—1,022 in 7,874 polymerase chain reaction tests and 548 in 3,491 antigen tests.

Active cases stand at 40,111 throughout the country.

So far, 15,628,533 people, or 53.3 percent of the total population have been fully immunised.

Nepal so far has received 46,599,920 doses of vaccines, including AstraZeneca, Vero Cell, Moderna, Janssen and Pfizer-BioNTech.

Nepal needs to vaccinate around 26 million of the 29.1 million population, as around three million are children under five years of age. Authorities had decided to inoculate children between five and 11 years but no deal has been reached so far to purchase vaccines for them.