COVID-19 caused a 54 percent increase in doctor consultations in a single day

According to a research, during a spike in COVID-19 instances in the country, the number of virus-related doctor visits increased by more than 50% in a single day on January 4. According to a research by healthcare business Practo, daily consultations have increased by more than 2.5 times since January 1.

According to the data, this is the largest single-day increase in doctor visits in 120 days, since the end of the devastating second wave. "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.

The research goes on to say that about 85 percent of these enquiries came from metro cities, with some of them seeing a continuous increase in the number of positive instances every day. Since January 1st, Mumbai has had the biggest increase in GP consultations, with a 132 percent increase, followed by Kolkata (106 percent), Delhi NCR (95 percent), Bangalore (75 percent), Chennai (47 percent), and Hyderabad (47 percent) (42 percent ). During the same time period, non-metro city queries grew by 53%. The age group 21-30 accounted for more than half of the consultations, followed by 31-40 (40%) and 41-50 (40%) respectively (10 percent ).

Practo's research was created to better understand Indians' healthcare practises in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic while maintaining strict data security and privacy standards. "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's research was created to better understand Indians' healthcare practises in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic while maintaining strict data security and privacy standards.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recorded 90,928 new COVID-19 cases in India in the last 24 hours. The weekly positivity rate is 3.47 percent, while the daily positivity rate is 6.43 percent.

A total of 325 individuals died, bringing the total number of deaths in the country to 4,82,876. With this, the country's active caseload has reached 2,85,401.

During this time, 19,206 people recovered from the ailment, bringing the total number of recoveries in India to 3,43,41,009. The current recovery rate is 97.81 percent.