Epidemiological trends of COVID-19 pandemic during first and second waves: A comparative study in east Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

From Wuhan, China, the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection that caused the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread quickly to other countries. India experienced its first wave of COVID-19 infection between March 2020 to February 2021 with the peak in August 2020.The second wave started in March 2021 and continued for few months till November 2021. This study has been conducted to describe the epidemiological trends based on laboratory data at East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India. The study was performed between March 2020 to November 2021at a tertiary care centre in East Godavari Dist., AP. Samples (Throat/ Nasal/ Nasopharyngeal swabs) were received from the Government hospitals in East Godavari district for Covid-19 Real time PCR. A total number of 5,00,869 and 8,75,808 samples were tested using rRT-PCR, and 39,626 (7.9%) and 98,656 (11.2%) were positive during first and second waves respectively. In the first wave the highest positivity rate was observed in the month of August (26.8%) whereas in Second Wave it was observed in the month of May (36.6%). In the both the waves highest positivity was observed in the age group 70-79 years (first wave 11.1% and second wave 16.3%). In both the waves the positivity rate of males was higher than females. Among symptomatic cases, the positivity rate was in the first wave 8.6% whereas in second 19.1% was observed. The overall, higher positivity rate was observed in the second wave when compared to first wave. Also we observed a noticeable difference between the 1 and 2waves in terms of positivity percentage among symptomatic cases.