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Surge continues, city records 5100 fresh Covid cases
New Delhi The Covid graph in the city continued its steep upward climb on Tuesday, with the number of daily cases breaching 5,000-mark — first time since November-end
New Delhi
The Covid graph in the city continued its steep upward climb on Tuesday, with the number of daily cases breaching 5,000-mark — first time since November-end . The city on Tuesday recorded 5,100 cases and 17 deaths due to the viral infection, as reported in Delhi’s daily health bulletin.
The increase in cases has been sharper during the “fourth wave” – as the Delhi government refers to the current surge, with the numbers rising from under 1,000 to over 5,000 in just 15 days. .
Experts, however, say this is the second spike that the city is witnessing.
Despite the high number of cases, the positivity rate – proportion of samples that return positive among total tested – remained below 5% due to the high number of tests conducted. The city reported a positivity rate of 4.93% on Tuesday, with 103,453 test having been conducted the previous day, as per the health bulletin.
Tuesday was the first time the city has seen over 100,000 tests in a day.
“The number of cases has definitely gone up faster this time around. This is because many people who are positive are moving around and restaurants and gyms are open. Normally, there is a surge in cases within 60 to 100 days of easing of restrictions. This is the natural behaviour of the virus. And, this is likely to continue till April or maybe May,” said Dr SK Sarin, director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. He headed Delhi government’s first committee on control and management of Covid-19 cases.
He added that the number of cases this time might cross the numbers seen during the peak of November. Delhi had reported 8,593 cases on November 11, the highest till date for the city.
In addition to the night curfew, Sarin feels that the restaurants should only open outdoor seating or give takeaways. “Restaurants and bars lead to the spread of the infection; you have to remove your mask if you have to eat or drink. An interesting study from the Columbia district in Washington DC showed that when restaurants were opened up after following strict masking norms, the number of cases increased ten-folds and number of deaths five-fold in 100 days,” he said.
The experts said that asymptomatic transmission was a major cause of concern during the current surge. “It has now been established that nearly 60% of the transmission can happen from asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases. Targeting only those with symptoms, such as fever, is not good enough. We need to trace more contacts and quarantine them,” said Dr GC Khilnani, former head of the department of pulmonary medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He is currently the chairman PSRI Institute of Pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine.
He added, “The pool of people transmitting silently will only increase as more and more people get vaccinated. This is because those who receive even one shot get some amount of immunity and are likely to have milder symptoms. They are also likely to not get tested and hence transmit it on to others.”
Dr Sarin agreed, adding, “The antibodies which form after an infection or immunisation are almost same. And, over 50% of Delhi’s population is seropositive. They are moving around and if they get the infection, and they can, they will have mild symptoms and may pass on the infection to others.”
Both said there is a need to increase vaccination. With the Centre opening up vaccination for everyone over the age of 45 years, Delhi’s drive has picked up pace. A record 87,678 doses were administered on Monday, of which 73% were given at government facilities, said Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain.
As per provisional reports, 74,642 doses were administered on Tuesday.
This comes a day after the government announced that at least one-third of the vaccination centres in 33 Delhi government hospitals will run 24*7 Tuesday onwards.
“95% of the total slots in government centres were utilised as compared to 67% in private hospitals. The trend was the opposite initially when the vaccination drive had begun. However, people are now happy with the facilities in government centres and are coming there,” said Jain.
So far, 1.38 million persons in Delhi have been administered at least one shot of the vaccine.
As the cases increase, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has stopped walk-in registrations at its out-patient clinics which had been restarted in December. “To optimise diversion of available manpower and material resources for the care and treatment of … Covid-19 disease, it has been decided to temporarily close down routine walk-in OPD … registrations,” read an order from the medical superintendent of the hospital. The clinics will continue to follow up with their existing patients.
