How diet, lifestyle & attitude have led Punjab to record India’s highest Covid death rate
ThePrint collected data from Patiala, Ludhiana, Faridkot and Amritsar, the districts reporting the maximum number of deaths in Punjab, and found that more than 60 percent of those who died of Covid here were either obese, diabetic or were suffering from hypertension.
Other prevalent illnesses were heart problems, kidney issues and alcoholic liver diseases.
According to data accessed by ThePrint, between 1 January to 21 May this year, Punjab has reported 8,963 Covid deaths for a CFR of 2.6 per cent against the national CFR of 1.3 per cent. CFR is the proportion of deaths among confirmed cases.
In contrast, Maharashtra has a CFR of 1.8 per cent, Karnataka has 1.2 per cent, Delhi has 1.7 per cent, Gujarat has 1.2 per cent and UP has 1.3 per cent.
In the same period, Patiala recorded 1,019 deaths, accounting for 11 per cent of Punjab’s death toll. At the Patiala Medical College, there have been 867 Covid deaths, of whom 501 people were diabetic, obese or hypertensive.
Similarly in Ludhiana, of the 625 deaths reported as of 21 May, 327 had either of the three conditions. In Faridkot, of the 284 deaths, 190 were of those who had these conditions and in Amritsar, 274 of the 502 people were of people who had these three conditions.
Doctors say “the diet in Punjab is very heavy, rich in fats and high in salt and sugar”, which is leading to obesity, diabetes and hypertension in the population.
According to a 2019 study by the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education Research (PGIMER), four out of 10 people in Punjab are suffering from hypertension, making the state the one with the highest number of such patients in the country.
An earlier PGIMER report also showed that over 40 per cent of Punjab’s population is overweight or obese, and the prevalence rate of diabetes in the state is five per cent higher than the national average.
Other major reasons for a high CFR, according to doctors, are patients reaching the hospital “very late”, vaccine hesitancy, a dependence on quacks for treatment, reluctance to get tested on time and thinking of the virus as a “conspiracy of the government to make money”.
