Fewest new Covid-19 cases in Delhi since April 30, 2020

Monday’s infection spike is the lowest since April 30 last year, when the city added 76 cases, during the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak in the Capital, before even the first wave, which began around mid-May.

The Capital on Monday added just 89 new cases of Covid-19, the lowest spike in over 400 days, as the test positivity rate fell to the lowest ever since the pandemic broke out in Delhi in March last year, in clear signs of recovery for the city after a punishing fourth wave between April and May that infected millions and left thousands dead.

The fourth wave of the pandemic has now seen a steady drop for eight consecutive weeks in the city. (HT Photo)

Monday’s infection spike is the lowest since April 30 last year, when the city added 76 cases, during the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak in the Capital, before even the first wave, which began around mid-May.

To be sure, at that time, the state was conducting significantly fewer tests to check for the infection than it is right now, and was averaging just around 2,700 tests per day. In comparison, an average of over 72,000 people were tested each day for Covid-19 in the seven-days ending Monday.

The fourth wave of the pandemic has now seen a steady drop for eight consecutive weeks in the city. The seven-day average of new infections – which denotes a region’s Covid-19 curve –touched a peak of 25,294 new cases a day on April 23, but fell to 159 cases a day in the past week, a drop of over 99% from the peak, showed state government data.

The number of active cases also continued to fall, as the city’s caseload continued to reduce, and dropped below the 2,000-mark for the first time since March 10 this year. At the peak of the fourth wave of infections on April 28, 99,752 people in the Capital were battling the viral infection. On Monday, there were 1996 active cases in the city.

Experts believe that Delhi might have reached an “endemic level” of the infection. “Such a low level of infection is only possible when endemic levels have been reached. Delhi, along with states such as Maharashtra and Punjab that saw the explosion of cases initially have reached the endemic levels and the entire country is likely to follow soon, probably by mid-July,” said Dr T Jacob John, former head of the department of virology at Christian Medical College-Vellore.

Monday’s 89 cases came on the back of 57,128 fresh Covid-19 tests, at a test positivity rate of 0.16%, the lowest ever in the national capital. The positivity rate is a crucial metric to understand the spread of an infection in a region. Experts, including the World Health Organization recommend a number below 5% for two weeks before an infection can be considered under control.

In Delhi, the test positivity rate has been below this threshold for 32 days, and below 1% for 22 days.

The state government also added 11 more deaths of the infections to the city’s toll, taking the number of Covid-19 fatalities to 24,925.

He, however, advised caution. “A third wave might happen only if a new variant emerges that is more transmissible than the delta variant or completely escapes the immunity. We should be alert, follow masking and social distancing, and monitor for variants. But the government should change the vaccination strategy now to protect against deaths. Mass vaccination should have happened in January and February to prevent the second wave, now the natural infection has already done what the vaccination had to do. So, now the focus should be comorbid and pregnant people.”