Delhi breaches 1k+ single-day rise for 5th time in six days

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Over the last couple of days, we have seen an increase in the number of patients coming in with severe symptoms.

nNEW DELHI: The Capital reported 1,298 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases reported in the city so far to 22,312, as per the Delhi government’s daily health bulletin.

The number of new cases shot up again after a slight dip on Monday, when Delhi added 990 patients to its tally.

The number of people facing severe symptoms and in need of ventilator support also shot up as compared to Monday. On Tuesday, 92 people were put on ventilator support, as compared to 42 the previous day.

This means, of the 12,573 active cases in the city, 0.7% needed to be put on the ventilator. This is a shade higher than the national average of 0.48% that Delhi had been mimicking so far.

Over 22% active cases are currently admitted to Covid-designated hospitals with severe symptoms such as respiratory distress and oxygen saturation below 90% (normal is between 95 to 100%).

Delhi also tested more samples on Tuesday than on Monday — 6,070 on Tuesday, as compared to 4,753 on Monday.

On an average, 6,539 samples have being processed on a daily basis since Delhi started recording over 1,000 cases a day, higher than the daily average of 4,868 samples that were being processed the week before.

Not only has the number of tests gone up, the positivity rate — the percentage of people testing positive among those tested — has also shot up to over 20% in the last three days. This means one in five people tested in the city, turn out to be positive for Covid-19.

As per national guidelines, only those with Covid-like symptoms or high-risk contact of a laboratory-confirmed case are tested for the infection.

On Tuesday, 33 more deaths were added to the cumulative total after review by the threemember death audit committee. Of these, 11 took place on May 31, and were confirmed by the committee on Monday. The earliest of

DR NEERAJ GUPTA, department of pulmonology, Safdarjung hospital

the other deaths dates back to April 19.

The Delhi government had over the weekend sent show cause notices and memorandums to seven government hospitals for delaying their death reports.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday said Covid-related deaths were not being under-reported in the country.

“None of us thinks that there is gross under-reporting of deaths, if you look at the figures, India has been doing very well in reduction of mortality, compared with other nations. As for dead body testing, there is always a term called causality assessment. Not all patient deaths in a hospital can be attributed to Covid-19. There are a lot of other factors responsible for a patient’s death. It’s not fair to link every death to Covid-19. Many of the states we know are doing a causality assessment attributing the cause of death to Covid- or non-covid related causes,” said Dr Nivedita Gupta, ICMR scientist.

The Delhi government’s data also shows that the Capital has 6,731 Covid-19 beds across government and private hospitals in the city. Of these, around 42% are currently being utilised. Additionally, 30% of the 302 available ventilators are being utilised.

“Over the last couple of days, we have seen an increase in the number of patients coming in with severe symptoms. This is mainly because with the increasing number of cases in the city, resources are being optimised and only those who are very sick are being admitted. However, people who are at home should monitor their symptoms very closely,” said Dr Neeraj Gupta from the department of pulmonology at Safdarjung hospital.