Covid-19 toll in Delhi rises to 231; 591 new cases reported

Delhi added 23 more deaths due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Saturday, taking the toll in the national capital to 231, even as 591 fresh cases increased the tally of the viral infections to 12,910, according to official data.

Of the total Covid-19 deaths so far in Delhi, 158 have been recorded in the last 12 days. A three-member death audit committee recently began clearing the reporting backlog of deaths that were not added to the cumulative tally.

An order by Delhi chief secretary Vijay Dev on May 10 directed all designated Covid-19 hospitals to report the deaths by 5pm each day to ensure timely reporting. This was done after discrepancies in the cumulative data and deaths recorded at the hospitals were pointed out.

The new deaths put the mortality rate of the disease in Delhi at about 1.8%, up from the 1% recorded on May 11.

The figure remains lower than the national average of 3%.

On Saturday, Delhi recorded 591 new cases of Covid-19.

The average number of daily cases has increased steadily in May, with the city recording over 500 cases each in the last five days.

Even as Delhi is recording a high number of cases, the doubling rate – an indicator of the pace of spread of the infection – has gone up to about 15 days. “We will be comfortable when the doubling rate goes up to 20 days,” Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said recently.

Of the 6,412 infections active currently, 1,886 people with severe symptoms have been admitted to designated Covid-19 hospitals. Of them, 184 are in intensive care units, with 27 people on ventilators.

“The numbers would certainly go up now that the lockdown has been eased, there are so many asymptomatic cases; how will you stop the infection? The numbers would increase further as the migrant workers reach their hometowns and after the two-week incubation period. However, what the numbers would look like, I do not know. None of the mathematical modellings has so far been able to predict the rise in the cases accurately. We say 80% of cases are asymptomatic but we haven’t really done any serological studies to estimate the burden of the disease so far. We have to do antibody tests in selected cohorts both in highburden and low-burden areas to find out the number of asymptomatic cases there,” said Dr Shobha Broor, former head, department of microbiology, AIIMS.