Delhi: Covid-19 positivity rate remains below 2% for two days in a row, govt may not scale up testing

With over 79,000 tests conducted and 1,547 new cases reported on Wednesday, Delhi saw a positivity rate of less than 2% for the second consecutive day, as per the

With over 79,000 tests conducted and 1,547 new cases reported on Wednesday, Delhi saw a positivity rate of less than 2% for the second consecutive day, as per the daily health bulletin shared by the city government. Delhi also reported 32 deaths due to Covid-19, taking the city’s total toll to 10,147 as on Wednesday.

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The positivity rate – the proportion of samples that return positive among the total tested – has remained at 5% or less in Delhi for the past 15 days, a first since the government started releasing daily data in March, giving rise to hopes that the disease may finally be under control in the national capital.

Experts believe that the spread of the infection is under control if a positivity rate is 5% or less and hat rate is maintained for at least two weeks.

“The number of cases and positivity rate in Delhi have continued to decline even though the behaviour of the people – such as wearing masks properly in public and maintaining social distance – has remained somewhat ambivalent. So, the decline is probably due to a high percentage of the population being exposed to the infection. Now, it is unlikely that Delhi would see a large spurt in cases. It might happen if a lot of susceptible people return to the city or if the virus mutates significantly,” said Dr Shobha Broor, former head of the department of microbiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The low positivity rate, however, could mean that Delhi might not scale up testing further, as implied by Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday during a press briefing.

“The World Health Organization says tests should be scaled up till the positivity rate of less than 8% is achieved. A positivity rate of 5% is considered to be optimum, which means that sufficient number of tests is being done. Delhi has had a positivity rate of less than 3% for five days in a row and less than 5% for 15 days in a row. Right now, the positivity rate is about 2%. Let us wait and watch as to how long the 2% positivity rate can be maintained,” said Jain, when asked about scaling up testing.

After a meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah in mid-November, when Delhi was going through the third and the worst surge in cases, the government had decided to scale up the number of daily tests to between 100,000 and 120,000.

On Tuesday, Delhi had reported the highest number of tests in a day – 85,105. Of these, almost half were conducted using the more accurate RT PCR method. The daily number of tests has gone up from an average of 52,617 tests, in the first week of November, to 72,793 over the past seven days, as per the data shared by the Delhi government.

The proportion of RT PCR tests daily has also gone up from 27.6% in the first week of November to 48.25% during the past seven days.

As for hospitalisations, the minister said around 50% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds were available in Delhi. However, in some of the big private hospitals, the occupancy of ICU beds still remained at 80%.

As per the government’s own Delhi Corona app, on average only 34.8% of the ICU beds – with or without ventilators – were occupied across hospitals as on Wednesday evening.