Delhi’s positivity rate declines to 7.22% as govt ramps up testing

After recording a Covid positivity rate of over 10% on Monday, the city saw a slight decline on Tuesday with a positivity rate of 7

After recording a Covid positivity rate of over 10% on Monday, the city saw a slight decline on Tuesday with a positivity rate of 7.22%, largely due to enhanced testing measures undertaken by the Delhi government to counter the recent spike in the viral infection.

A good sign, however, remains that the number of Covid-19 hospitalisations remain a miniscule proportion of the total available hospital beds (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

To be sure, the city added 1,383 new Covid cases on Tuesday, according to the Delhi government’s health bulletin, which is 323 more than Monday’s count of 1,060 cases. But on Monday, Delhi had conducted 10,506 tests, of which 10.09% samples returned positive, while on Tuesday, it increased testing to 19,165 resulting in a lower positivity rate of 7.22%.

Senior health officials, however, said the city continues to be in the ”red zone” and a possible reason behind the current spike could be the general laxity in wearing masks in public spaces.The administration is keeping a close watch on cases and all preventive measures are being taken to control a further spread in infections, officials said.

“We are holding routine meetings with district officials and we have directed them to ramp up enforcement in their respective areas. We have come to understand that laxity in mask wearing is the major reason for the current spike. People have become complacent,” said a senior health official on Tuesday, asking not to be named.

The official said certain pockets in the city have been identified as the “most complacent” when it comes to mask rules. The worst performing districts are east Delhi, north-east Delhi, north-west Delhi and south-west Delhi, officials said.

Another official said the government, in the coming days, will ramp up testing even more and districts have been directed to set up free testing camps in their respective areas.

Even though cases are increasing, health experts said hospitalisations and deaths continued to be on the lower end, which was a “consolation”.

On Tuesday, one person died of Covid as opposed to six deaths reported on Monday. Of the 9,491 beds reserved in Covid hospitals, only 264 (2.78%) beds were occupied as on Tuesday, leaving 9227 (97.22%) beds vacant.

Dr Sumit Ray, head of the department of critical care medicine, Holy Family Hospital, said currently his hospital has two people in critical care, one who is partially vaccinated and another who is immuno-compromised.

“Even though cases are going up, I am of the opinion that we still have nothing to panic about. The hospitalisations are low and patients who are at risk are those who are either not fully vaccinated or have serious comorbidities,” said Dr Ray.