Delhi’s Covid-19 positivity rate expected to go below 5%: Health minister

Delhi battled a severe rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths last month. The recent surge in the virus cases was seen during the festive season and rising pollution level, experts said.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday said the government sees the prospects of Covid-19 positivity rate going down to 5% in the next few days.

A doctors seals a vial containing a swab with tape while conducting Covid-19 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction tests (RT-PCR) on Delhi Municipal Corp. workers at the Civic Center building in New Delhi. (Bloomberg)

“Positivity rate has declined below 7%. It is expected to go below 5% in the next few days. Currently, more than 1600 ICU beds are available in hospitals in Delhi,” Jain said. Delhi’s positivity rate, which had crossed 15% on November 15, is hovering in 6-8% mark in the last few weeks.

The health minister had previously stated that the positivity rate in the national capital has fallen by a margin of nearly 55 per cent since early November and it should reduce further in the next two weeks.

Delhi battled a severe rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths last month. The recent surge in the virus cases was seen during the festive season and rising pollution level, experts said.

In order to fight the rising cases, authorities ramped up the Covid-19 testing strategy and increased the tests to over 60,000 a day-mark. The government has also slashed the prices of RT-PCR tests in private labs to aid people who want to get their tests done in private labs.

Adopting an aggressive approach of contact tracing and testing, the Delhi government has carried out RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Test to detect novel coronavirus in the national capital. Both tests are done free at government testing centres and hospitals.

Signalling the need to ramp up medical infrastructure, the National Centre for Disease Control in a report drafted recently warned that the national capital needs to be prepared for about 15,000 fresh cases of Covid-19 per day taking into account the upcoming winter season-related respiratory problems, large influx of patients from outside and festive gatherings.