E-Paper
City records over 500 virus cases for third day, toll goes up to 194
Delhi added 18 deaths from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Thursday, taking the city-state’s toll to 194. Of the total deaths, 121 were reported over the last 10 days.
Delhi added 18 deaths from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Thursday, taking the city-state’s toll to 194. Of the total deaths, 121 were reported over the last 10 days, when the three-member death audit committee started reporting the backlog of deaths.
Delhi also recorded 571 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, taking the total number of cases to 11,659, according to the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government. With over 500 new cases each day, Delhi has been recording the highest single-day spike for the last three days, the data shows.
Until May 11, Delhi had reported 73 Covid-19 deaths, according to the daily health bulletin. The higher number of deaths since still puts the mortality rate of the infection in the national capital at 1.6%, which is much lower than the national average of 3.03%.
Two days ago, the Delhi government reiterated the need for timely reporting of Covid-19 deaths by designated hospitals. “It has come to notice that both public and private hospitals are not reporting the deaths of positive cases of Covid-19 occurring in their hospitals in a timely and regular manner,” it said in an order.
The first order to this effect was issued by the city’s chief secretary Vijay Dev on May 10, asking all hospitals treating Covid-19 patients to send in reports of deaths by 5pm each day. The standard operating procedures were put in place after a discrepancy was noticed in the cumulative number of deaths reported by the health bulletin and by individual hospitals.
The addition of over 500 cases daily is the second of three scenarios for which a five-member expert committee had advised the Delhi chief minister to prepare. The first scenario was Delhi reporting 100 cases a day and the third was 1,000 cases a day.
“Delhi is already reached the second scenario that the committee had advised about. And Delhi is prepared for the third scenario of 1,000 cases being reported in a day as well,” said Dr SK Sarin, chair of the five-member committee and director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences.
The Delhi government is in the process of procuring 2,000 oxygen concentrators, devices that selectively remove nitrogen from the ambient air to make it about 93% concentrated oxygen. This can be used for providing oxygen therapy to critical Covid-19 patients.
A small percentage of those with the infection – only 0.4% of the patients – need ventilator support. In the country, too, 0.45% of the active cases, or those still with the infection, are on ventilators. Some 2.94% of the people are on oxygen support, according to data from the union health ministry.
There are 306 ventilators in the government sector and 800 ventilators in the private sector in Delhi.
