New cases in Delhi dip below 4k as testing slows over weekend

On the five days that Delhi reported over 4,000 cases, between 54,000 and 60,000 tests were conducted – the highest being on September 11 when 60,580 samples were tested.

The number of fresh Covid cases reported in the past 24 hours dropped to below 4,000 for the first time in five days in Delhi on Monday, with the city recording 3,229 new cases.

The dip in number of cases, however, was a direct result of fewer tests being conducted in the city over the weekend. (Sakib Ali /Hindustan Times)

The dip in number of cases, however, was a direct result of fewer tests being conducted in the city over the weekend.

On the five days that Delhi reported over 4,000 cases, between 54,000 and 60,000 tests were conducted – the highest being on September 11 when 60,580 samples were tested. On an average, over 51,000 tests were conducted each day during last week.

The positivity rate – fraction of people who test positive among those tested – remained almost constant at just over 7%. The seven-day weekly average positivity rate recorded in Delhi is 7.37% during the last week.

“The number of cases in Delhi is slowly stabilising and the positivity rate is coming down. Even with about 60,000 tests, some 4,000 people turn out to be positive. During the June surge, about 3,900 positive cases were reported with just 15,000 tests. The Delhi model is great because many asymptomatic people are getting tested, especially those coming in to hospitals to seek treatment for other ailments. This helps in identifying and isolating more people, thereby preventing further spread,” said Dr SK Sarin, director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) and the head of the first committee set up by the state government to tackle Covid-19.

The city reported 26 deaths due to the viral infection on Monday, taking the total death toll of Covid-19 in Delhi to 4,770. The absolute number of deaths have increased over August – on average 15.5 deaths were being recorded each day in August as compared to 23.3 deaths on average being recorded in September. However, the case fatality ratio (CFR) – proportion of people who die of the infection among those who test positive – has been on a decline, with the seven-day daily average CFR at 2.24%, higher than the national average of 1.6%.

The CFR over the last seven day has just been 0.52%, indicating that most of the deaths in the city were recorded during the previous surge in cases in June.

With the number of cases on the rise in the city, the number of hospitalisations has also touched a record high of 6,592 cases. With hospitals running out of intensive care unit beds, the Delhi government during the weekend ordered 28 big private hospitals to ramp up capacity by reserving 80% of its total ICU beds for the management of Covid-19 cases.