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Daily new Covid-19 cases in Delhi hit a 40-day high
After witnessing a drop in Covid-19 cases in the past few weeks, infections in Delhi have started rising again, leading experts to warn the city against complacency, which, they said, may cause a resurgence of the outbreak.
The Capital on Tuesday recorded 1,544 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the highest single-day increase in infections in the city in 40 days, according to official data -- a worrying statistic at a time when the state government has asked that Metro rail services be resumed.
After witnessing a drop in Covid-19 cases in the past few weeks, infections in Delhi have started rising again, leading experts to warn the city against complacency, which, they said, may cause a resurgence of the outbreak.
The Capital was the first major Covid-19 hot spot in the country to have successfully controlled the outbreak last month. At the end of June, the city was reporting over 3,400 cases every day at an average, which then dropped in the 900s in the first week of August. In the last week, Delhi has added 1,333 cases every day on average – the highest the weekly case trajectory has touched since July 21, or 35 days ago, when cases were still dropping from the peak.
Tuesday’s increase in daily Covid-19 cases is the highest since July 16, when 1,652 new cases were registered.
While the Delhi government said the Covid-19 situation continues to be under control in the city, clinicians and public health experts said the new-case trajectory implies that the infection rate has once again started to increase, and this can be attributed to violations of recommended protection protocols such as social distancing and wearing masks in public places.
The increase in case rate comes at a time when the Delhi government has started opening hotels and weekly markets, with talks underway to open the Delhi Metro, which carries around 2.5 million people every day.
Dr Lalit Kant, former head, epidemiology, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said that residents must continue to maintain extreme caution despite the opening up of services in the city because two out of every three people in Delhi remain susceptible to infection from Sars-Cov2 as per the latest serological survey, findings of which were released by the Delhi government on Thursday.
“Services such as the Metro, which carried millions of people daily, should be opened only when the positivity rate is below 5%. Same goes for other economic activities as well because more opportunities will lead to more infections. But, these are all ‘date’ driven (political) not data driven decisions. Since the government has opened up economic activities it should be absolutely confident about being able to test, treat and isolate the increased caseload. Contact tracing and active surveillance should not be compromised at any cost,” said Kant.
With 1,544 new Covid-19 cases reported on Tuesday, Delhi’s tally of total cases now stands at 164,071 of which 11,998 are active cases. In the last 24 hours, 1,155 people have been cured of the virus in Delhi. Out of those infected, 147,743 have recovered. Delhi reported 17 new deaths due to the virus, taking Covid-19 death toll to 4,330.
Dr VK Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog said this week that people need to take protective measures seriously.
“Delhi is at a stage where whether cases increase or decrease will depend on how people here behave. Covid-19 appropriate behaviour such as wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing, hand hygiene etc. must be strictly followed if the numbers have to go down from here otherwise cases will keep coming as the susceptible population is there and virus is in circulation,” Dr Paul said on Monday.
The rise in cases corresponds with the number of daily tests in Delhi being on a near-steady drop from peak levels – 19,841 samples were tested on Monday, with 14,461 (72.9%) of these being antigen, or rapid tests. The seven-day average for tests stands at 17,924 — significantly off the peak of 21,660 for the week ending July 10.
This drop in testing has also caused a steady increase in the positivity rate — the fraction of tests that return positive. Around 7.8% of tests came back positive for Covid-19 according to Tuesday’s bulletin. This pushes the seven-day average of positivity rate to 7.5%, the highest since July 19, or 37 days ago. The number had dropped from a peak of 31.4% in mid-June to 5.7% at the end of July, the lowest recorded in the city so far.
According to recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO), the positivity rate from a region that has a comprehensive testing programme should be at or below 5% for at least two weeks before it can be considered that the outbreak is under control in the region. Delhi has never dropped below this threshold.
While the Delhi government declined to comment on Tuesday, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said that the Covid-19 situation is still under control because the infection rate in the Capital is still below 10%.
“We see the infection rate in ranges of 5-10%, 10-20%, 20-30% and so on. As on date, the infection rate is well below 10%, whereas, Delhi has also seen a time when the infection rate had hit 40%. The current variation of 1-1.5% we are seeing these days is understandable and keeps happening. It is just day-to-day variation,” Jain said during his interaction with reporters on Monday.
