Delhi sees a dip in Covid-19 cases with fewer tests on Holi

The positivity rate—the proportion of samples that return positive among the total tested —remained high at 2.70% on Tuesday.

With fewer tests conducted on the occasion of Holi, Delhi reported just 992 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Tuesday, which is the lowest number of infections in a week. There were 36,757 tests conducted on Monday – reported a day later in Tuesday’s bulletin – in comparison to over 83,000 tests conducted daily on average during the last seven days.

The containment zones in Delhi have breached the 1,900-mark while 4,832 patients continue to remain under home isolation, the bulletin also said. (HT file photo)

The positivity rate—the proportion of samples that return positive among the total tested —remained high at 2.70% on Tuesday. The average positivity rate for the last seven days stood at 1.8%, up from 0.9% the week before, and 0.56% the week before that. The positivity rate, which is indicative of the ongoing spread of the infection, had remained below 1% consecutively for 82 days between December 28 and March 19.

Delhi has been focussing on increasing the number of tests and thorough contact tracing to check the spread of the infection. “In order to stop the increase in the number of cases, we have increased the rate of testing with around 85,000 to 90,000 tests being conducted each day. This is five times more than the country’s average. Isolation and contact tracing is also being done. For every positive case, over 30 contacts are traced and asked to remain in quarantine in order to contain it as fast as possible," Delhi’s health minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday.

The number of tests has crossed the 90,000-mark twice this month, which has been the highest number of tests conducted in Delhi ever since the first case was detected on March 2 last year. The city has also ramped up the number of more accurate RT PCR test. Over 68% of all the tests conducted in Delhi over the last seven days were using the RT PCR method.

The Centre had asked the 12 states and Union territories, including Delhi, that have been reporting a surge in the number of cases to scale up the number of tests being conducted and ensure that 70% of the tests are conducted using the more accurate RT PCR methods. Delhi’s South District is one of the 46 districts the Centre has identified as “most affected”; it is the only one from Delhi so far.

With four people dying of the viral infection on Tuesday, the number remained lower than the seven deaths reported each day on average during the last seven days.

The hospitalisations due to the infection have also been on the rise, crossing the 1,500-mark on Tuesday. There were 1,584 persons admitted to city hospitals with Covid-19 as of Monday night. With fewer cases reported on Tuesday, the number of active cases or those currently living with the infection saw a dip to 7,429 from Monday’s 8,032.

The city currently has about 5,700 beds earmarked for the treatment of Covid-19, with the health minister on Saturday saying that more beds weren’t required as of now.

“Hospitals have a sufficient number of beds. Currently, the occupancy is around 20%. For instance, there are 500 beds in Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty hospital, but only around 20 to 25 people are admitted. The rate of occupancy for ICU beds too is 20%; in Lok Nayak hospital we have 300 ICU beds and in Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty hospital also 300 of the 500 beds are ICU beds. So a large number of ICU beds being provided and we would increase them if required," Jain said.