Covid count up by 500 in a day, toll rises by six
nNEW DELHI : A day after crossing 10,000 cases, Delhi reported 500 new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infections on Tuesday, according to the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government. The new cases, the highest single-day spike so far, took the city’s tally to 10,554.
Delhi has mirrored the national trend of an acceleration in number of cases over the past two weeks, although the number of deaths remains low, especially when seen in the context of the number of cases.
Six deaths of Covid-19 patients were reported in the capital on Tuesday, taking the toll of the viral infection in the city to 166, putting Delhi’s mortality rate (the number of deaths expressed as a percentage of cases) at around 1.6%, much lower than the national average of 3.07%.
Delhi has reported an increase in the number of deaths since May 12, when the three-member death audit committee started sifting through a backlog of reported fatalities to confirm whether they had been caused by Covid-19. After a discrepancy was noticed between the number of fatalities reported by hospitals and the number of deaths in the health bulletin, the chief secretary directed all designated Covid-19 hospitals to send in their death reports each day by 5pm to ensure accurate reporting .
“It has been observed that in spite of the order, health care facilities in Delhi are not timely reporting death of Covid positive persons as per the SOPS circulated,” said a new order from health secretary Padmini Singla.
Of the 166 deaths that have been recorded so far, at least 52% are patients who are aged 60 years or older. Almost 85% of those who died had some co-morbidity such as diabetes, hypertension, heart or kidney disease.
With 500 cases a day, Delhi is now living out the second scenario taken into account by a fivemember committee of doctors formed in March for advising the chief minister on Covid-19.
The committee suggested measures such as making space for Covid-19 patients in government and private hospitals and taking over hotels and shelter homes to isolate patients; it also suggested how many ventilators the city would need when the tally reaches 100 cases a day, 500 cases a day and 1,000 cases a day.
“Delhi is reasonably well prepared for around 1,000 cases a day for about 15 days at a stretch. If we assume, that for every 500 cases, 10 to 12 will need ventilators we have enough in the city and the actual numbers are lower,” said Dr SK Sarin, head of the fivemember committee.
Of the 5,638 people still living with the infection in Delhi, 1,779 with severe symptoms are admitted to Covid-19 hospitals. Of them, 158 people are in intensive care units with 16 on ventilators.
Currently, Delhi has 306 ventilators in the government sector and another 800 in the private sector. The government is planning to buy another 500 ventilators.
“Lower number of people on ventilators shows that the severity of the infection is less. There could be two possible reasons -the age of patients and virus strain. If mostly young people have been infected, the disease is likely to be less severe. Also, the virus strain could be such that it does not cause severe infection. In Maharashtra and Gujarat, where the severity of infection seems to be higher, both states might have the same strain of virus as they are geographically closer,” said Dr Shobha Broor, former head of the department of microbiology at AIIMS.