Delhi reports fewest Covid deaths since mid-April

New Delhi: Delhi reported 156 fatalities due to Covid-19 on Tuesday-- the lowest single-day death toll since mid-April, when the cases of the viral infection shot up significantly in what was the Capital’s deadliest surge with 28,400 cases logged on April 20

New Delhi: Delhi reported 156 fatalities due to Covid-19 on Tuesday-- the lowest single-day death toll since mid-April, when the cases of the viral infection shot up significantly in what was the Capital’s deadliest surge with 28,400 cases logged on April 20. The toll peaked 14 days later with 448 deaths reported in a single day on May 3.

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So far, 23,565 people have died of Covid-19 in the city, as per the government’s daily health bulletin, which also showed 1,568 new infections on Tuesday. The number of cases dipped below the 10,000-mark 12 days ago.

“The deaths are likely to remain high for nearly two weeks even after the cases go down because that is the timeline of Covid-19. Those who were critically ill during the peak of the infection are still admitted in the hospital. It takes a patient admitted to the ICU nearly three weeks to recover and those on ventilators nearly four weeks. And, some of them will continue to die,” said Dr Sumit Ray, critical care specialist and medical superintendent of Holy Family hospital.

However, with the number of cases going down and a high number of deaths being reported, the seven-day rolling average case fatality ratio (CFR) – proportion of deaths among those who test positive over the last seven days – has shot up to 7.96%. The CFR has never been this high since the first wave of the pandemic in June-July last year.

Even when 437 fatalities were added to the city’s death toll on June 16 last year as Delhi reconciled its mortality figures, the seven-day rolling average CFR was 6.97%. However, the cumulative CFR – calculated on the basis of total cases and deaths – has remained low at 1.66% on Tuesday compared to 4.11% on June 16. This is still higher than the national average of nearly 1.1%.