Active infections in Delhi decline; experts cautious

IT IS EARLY DAYS YET, EXPERTS SAY, STRESSING THE NEED TO CONTINUE WITH SOCIAL DISTANCING, MASKS, HAND HYGIENE AND OTHER DOS AND DON’TS

NEW DELHI: The national capital’s Covid-19 count crossed the grim one lakh milestone this week but the number of active cases is dipping as is the positivity rate while the recovery rate is going up, raising hopes of the epidemic curve flattening if the trends continue.

As testing is significantly ramped up, the death rate, too, has fallen marginally and the projected explosion of cases hasn’t happened.

The signs are undoubtedly good but these are just baby steps as Delhi moves ahead in its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, cautioned experts.

It is early days yet, they said, stressing the urgent need to continue with social distancing, masks, hand hygiene and other dos and don’ts to ward off the infection. Lowering the guard could lead to cases surging again.

“We can say the curve seems to be flattening, though this virus is novel and can spring a surprise,” a senior doctor at the frontline of the fight in a private hospital said on the condition of anonymity.

“The dip in cases is encouraging but it would be prudent to have multiple data points created over the next two weeks to better map the trends and to be able to say the curve has flattened. In order to draw an inference about effective containment, the decline that is being observed has to be sustained over a period of time,” added Dr Samiran Panda, head of ICMR’s Epidemiology and Communicable Division. Several experts are encouraged by the trend of average fresh cases per day and the slide in positivity rate over the last fortnight.

On March 1, the city recorded its first Covid-19 case.

More than three months later, the number of cases is 1,07,051 with 3,258 fatalities, according to the Health Ministry on Friday.

However, 82,226 cases have recovered and 21,567 cases are still active. The number of active figures is the lowest in 28 days.

The peak came on June 23 when the city recorded 3,947 fresh cases. For three days after that, there were 3,000 cases a day.

Figures dipped. From June 27 to July 3, the average fresh cases per day was 2,494 compared to 3,446 cases the previous week.

The trend has continued -July 4 (2,505), July 5 (2,244), July 6 (1,379), July 7 (2,008), July 8 (2,033) and July 9 (2,187).