January spike second-highest but toll far lower than before
NEW DELHI: : In nearly two years since the Covid-19 pandemic set foot in Delhi, January this year saw the second-highest total monthly infections, but only the eighth-highest overall fatalities, with the number of deaths still a fraction of any of the previous surges in the Capital in more evidence that the Omicron-fuelled fifth wave of infections was relatively forgiving for the city and did not pressure its health care infrastructure.
Delhi added over 382,000 infections in January this year, beaten only by April 2021, when the city logged over 486,000 cases, the first month of a surge driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus that tore through the Capital and indeed all of the country.
However, in comparison, the city added 758 deaths of the infection in the past month, a number that was eclipsed by the death toll during case spikes in seven other months: May 2021, April 2021, November 2020, June 2020, December 2020, July 2020, October 2020, and September 2020.
Experts said these numbers are in line with what has been observed globally in swells where Omicron has been the dominant form of the virus - a rapid rise in infections that peaks and then ebbs quickly, coupled with a relatively higher share of mild cases causing fewer hospitalisations.
May and April 2021 have been the most severe months of the pandemic in terms of overall deaths by a fair distance.
According to numbers released by the state government in its daily health bulletins, 8,090 people lost their lives to Covid-19 in May 2021, and 5,120 died in the previous month.
The two months bore the brunt of Delhi’s fourth wave of infections, a time when the city’s medical infrastructure and frontline workforce was pushed to the limit, and notably when the country’s vaccine drive was in its nascency.
“Better vaccination coverage has definitely helped keep infections milder and keep people away from hospitals. But
Omicron as a variant is also generally characterised by relatively less severe symptoms. It has been a combination of both vaccination and the nature of the variant itself, and similar trends are being observed everywhere around the world,” said Dr Puneet Misra, professor (community medicine), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Meanwhile, on Monday, Delhi added 2,779 cases of Covid-19, a dip from 3,674 the previous day.
test positivity rate also fell marginally, from 6.37% to 6.2% on Monday, according to the state government’s daily health bulletin.
The national capital has so far seen five distinct surges over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic: Between May-end and June 2020, September 2020, November 2020, between April and May last year, and the final one in January this year, which appears to be heading towards a flatline.
While the fifth wave has seen the most single-day infections (28,867 on January 13) over the course of the pandemic, this rapid surge has not reflected in the number of deaths or even rate of hospital admissions, both of which have remained not just a fraction of overall cases, but also far lower than any of the earlier spikes.
In June 2020, 2,269 in Delhi died of the infection. During the September surge, 917 lost their lives to the infection, while this rose to 2,663 in November that year.
While these waves are eclipsed by the fatalities between April and May last year, the number in January remains significantly lower, prompting experts (and indeed the state government) to push for easing most curbs and reopening schools.
While the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) last week lifted the weekend curfew and allowed eateries to reopen, with seating restrictions, schools remain shut and a night curfew between 10pm and 5am remains in place.
Last week, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia assured a delegation of parents that the government would recommend the reopening of schools during the DDMA meeting. However, the authority deferred discussions on this matter to its next meeting.
The state government’s stance on relaxing restrictions was informed primarily by the low hospitalisation numbers throughout the course of January, when a vast majority of beds remained vacant, even as cases (and the test positivity rate) hit their peak in the middle of the month.
At the peak of hospitalisations, 2,784 Covid-19 patients in Delhi occupied hospital beds (on January 17), which still left over 80% beds free in the city’s health care institutions. In fact, at no point during the ongoing surge has hospitalisations crossed even 20% of the city’s available bed count, with the state government not needing to unfurl plans to increase the number of beds as it previously intended to.
“We were prepared for the worst, since some projections said Delhi’s cases will peak to over 70,000 a day. Our arrangements were for nearly 100,000 infections a day. We were regularly monitoring the situation and augmenting beds in all dedicated Covid-19 hospitals,” said a senior Delhi health department official.
Experts concurred that the city’s hospitals were relatively undisturbed during the fifth wave of infections.
“At the peak of this wave, Delhi saw around 28,000 infections, which were as many as what we saw in the second wave. However, with the same numbers, the load on hospitals was lower. The unofficial infection count could be much higher, but the point is that we passed the peak and hospital admissions remained low,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, head of the department of community medicine at Safdarjung hospital.
The national capital entered the new year with some scepticism, as infections picked up, and the city looked at a fresh round of curbs and turmoil. It leaves January 2022 far better off than it previously has after a Covid-19 sweep.