Covid in Delhi: NE district 1st in ‘green’ as weekly positivity below 5%

The dip in northeast Delhi’s positivity rate to 4.37% brought the district into the ‘green’ zone, even as the statistic remains in the ‘red zone’ (above 10%) in six of the city’s 11 revenue districts, showed the state government’s latest weekly review of the Covid-19 situation in the Capital.

After nearly 45 days, one of the Capital’s 11 districts had an average weekly Covid-19 test positivity rate below 5%, showed data from the state government, amid signals that Delhi may have emerged from the worst of the fifth wave of infections.

South Delhi tops the average weekly positivity rate list in Delhi at 19.87%. (PTI file photo. Representative image)

The dip in northeast Delhi’s positivity rate to 4.37% brought the district into the ‘green’ zone, even as the statistic remains in the ‘red zone’ (above 10%) in six of the city’s 11 revenue districts, showed the state government’s latest weekly review of the Covid-19 situation in the Capital.

The state government report assessed data from the city’s 11 districts between January 22 and January 28.

The weekly test positivity rate in four districts was in the “orange zone” (between 5% and 10%), according to the report: south-west Delhi (8.59%), north Delhi (8.21%), Shahdara (7.34%), and central Delhi (6.13%).

According to the Union health ministry’s guidelines, a district is categorised as a “red zone” if the average positivity rate is above 10%. If the average test positivity rate in the area is between 5-10%, it is classified as an orange zone, and a district is in the “green” if the statistic falls below 5%.

“Because of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and its transmissibility, all districts in Delhi entered the red zone in December 2021. By the second week of January 2022, we saw a peak positivity rate of nearly 30% in the entire city, with some districts reporting rates of 32-33%. From there, to have reached the green zone is a clear indication of things improving,” said a senior Delhi health department official.

Four districts in Delhi, however, remain in the red, said the official.

South Delhi tops the average weekly positivity rate list in Delhi at 19.87%, followed by north-west Delhi at 16.80%, New Delhi at 15.94% and west Delhi with a positivity of 13.91% last week.

Health experts said the milder nature of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus meant the hospitalisation numbers were likely to be more useful as a metric to gauge an area’s pandemic situation.

“The numbers are definitely suggesting a decline and the rate at which we are going, the average positivity rate in districts will continue to fall. But what is also important to note is that even during the peak of the infection, our hospitals were not overburdened,” said Dr Sanjay Rai, professor (community medicine), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).