Record 381 deaths in Delhi, positivity rate still over 30%
NEW DELHI: For the eighth day in a row, the Capital’s Covid-19 positivity rate remained over 30% -- on Tuesday, the city recorded 24,149 infections over 73,800 tests, a positivity rate of 32.7%.
On Tuesday, with 381 new deaths, Delhi also reported its highest ever single day death toll. This was the sixth consecutive day when the city recorded more than 300 deaths. The total number of deaths was 15,009 on Tuesday.
Positivity rate -- the proportion of samples that return positive for Covid-19 -- is a crucial metric as experts say it shows how widespread the virus is in the community, and when coupled with increasing new cases, it indicates that the virus is spreading fast within the community. The city had never before seen this high a positivity rate for so long.
The city had earlier recorded a positivity rate of more than 30% only a few times – three separate days in April-may of last year when the number of tests wasn’t consistent, four straight days in June when the city recorded its first wave and one day in July.
A total of 24149 new deaths were reported in the city on Tuesday, taking the total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in the city to 1,072,065, according to the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government.
Experts said that the worst is yet to come for the city, as cases and deaths are expected to continue rising in the near future particularly because the positivity rate is so high in the Capital right now.
“All the statistical models indicate that with the current trajectory, the number of cases will likely peak in mid-may. And deaths will peak two weeks after that. Last year, the curve of the infection was bell-shaped. This year, however, it is almost vertical. What this means is that the decline will also be slower,” said Dr Lalit Kant, former head of the department of epidemiology at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
He also called for a push towards genome sequencing, so that variants of Sars-cov-2 can be tracked in the city.
“Now, there is a clustering of cases; entire families getting infected in one go. This is the time there should be cluster sampling done for genome sequencing. And, it is important to get the results of the samples collected in April in the same month so that action can be taken based on the information.”
The number of hospitalisations have also remained at around 18,800 for three days now, with many hospitals running out of beds to treat Covid-19 patients.
Now, there is a clustering of cases; entire families getting infected in one go. This is the time there should be cluster sampling done for genome sequencing.
expert