UK variant cause of Capital surge, says official; 348 more die in city

Just over 75,000 tests were conducted on average over the last three days in comparison to over 93,000 tests conducted each day on average over the last seven days.

The city reported over 300 Covid-19 deaths for the second day in a row as hospitals in the city continued to reel under a severe shortage of oxygen, even as an official cited an analysis of genome sequencing over the past four months that showed that the variant of the Sars-Cov-2 first seen in the UK — B.1.1.7 — was behind the present surge in the national capital.

The Capital on Friday recorded 348 deaths of the infection, while adding 24,331 fresh cases on the back of 75,037 tests, as the positivity rate dropped marginally to 32.43%. (AP)

The Capital on Friday recorded 348 deaths of the infection, while adding 24,331 fresh cases on the back of 75,037 tests, as the positivity rate dropped marginally to 32.43%.

So far, 13,541 people have died of the viral infection in the city as per Friday’s health bulletin released by the Delhi government. In comparison, one of Delhi’s worst Dengue outbreaks in 2015 killed 60 people in the entire year.

At least 400 cases of the UK variant, and 76 of the so-called “double mutation” variant were detected in Delhi.

“In Delhi we are finding a different type of scenario: we do find the UK variant and B.1.617 variant, but the scenario is still unfolding. We have seen a rise of the UK variant from 28% in the second week of March to 50% in the last week of March. And if we just try to correlate the surge which we have been observing in Delhi, it directly coincides with the type of variant,” said Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh, director National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which is the nodal lab for Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortia (INSACOG).

In Punjab too, the UK variant was found to be behind the surge in cases.

In Maharashtra, the B.1.617 variant, also known as the double mutant, was found in proportions of over 50% in many cities, the INSACOG analysis shows.

Of the total 1,770 samples sequenced, 64 were of the UK variant, six of the South African one (B.1.351), one of the Brazilian (P.1) variant. The “double mutation” variant, or B.1.617, was found in 427 cases.

So far INSACOG has sequenced 15,133 sars-cov-2 genomes from Covid-19 international travellers as well as from the community.

Of the all samples sequenced, 2,000 were of travellers.

Meanwhile, experts say the sharp increase in deaths in the Capital can be attributed to the unprecedented rise in the number of cases and the collapsing health infrastructure.

“There is an unprecedented increase in the number of cases; we have never seen anything like this. All the hospitals are running full and patients are running from here and there, this is adding to the mortality. We receive several patients who are brought dead to our hospital after going to several other hospitals. There has to be centralised system and ambulances have to be placed at all major hospitals to transport patients to where the beds are,” said a senior doctor from one of city’s private hospitals.

However, the city has almost run out of beds. There were just 22 ICU beds available across the city as on Friday night and 1,855 normal beds, according to the Delhi Corona app.

The city has reported over 20,000 cases for seven days now, with the highest number of cases (28,395) being reported on April 20. Although the absolute number of cases has gone down since, it is largely because of fewer tests conducted over the last three days.

Just over 75,000 tests were conducted on average over the last three days in comparison to over 93,000 tests conducted each day on average over the last seven days.