Delhi may bring back Covid checks for domestic flyers
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will convene a meeting on Monday to decide whether it was necessary to put in checks and safeguards — such as mandatory negative RT-PCR test reports — for people arriving from states where Covid-19 cases are spiking, said senior government officials on Friday.
The meeting comes in the backdrop of health minister Satyendar Jain on Friday asserting during an event that Delhi is out of the “danger zone”.
“The DDMA is meeting on Monday for review of Covid-19 situation in other states and Union territories, especially those in which the number of cases are rising again,” confirmed Delhi’s chief secretary Vijay Dev.
Another senior official in the executive committee of the DDMA, who did not wish to be identified, said: “On Monday, the authority will also decide whether, at this stage, it is necessary to impose conditions, like mandatory RT-PCR test results – that are valid for 72 hours – for people arriving from the states where cases are rising again.”
The DDMA is chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is the vice-chairperson.
In Delhi, the daily test positivity rate has remained less than 1% for more than two months now. On Friday, government records showed, Delhi recorded 158 new Covid-19 cases and a positivity rate of 0.26% with 60,836 tests — of which 39,931 were RT-PCR tests, that are believed to be more accurate — being conducted. So far, 637,603 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in Delhi of which 625,653 people have recovered and 10,897 have died.
“I feel now that all the three waves of Covid-19 have hit the city and it will die down eventually. Now it is no more a pandemic but an endemic… I hope we won’t see 8,600 cases in a day. I feel we are out of the danger zone but we still need to take proper precautions, masks and social distancing needs to be maintained,” said Satyendar Jain on Friday at an event to felicitate health workers at Lok Nayak hospital.
At its peak, Delhi recorded 8,593 new Covid-19 cases on November 11 – the highest for a single day in the city.
Dr Lalit Kant, former head of the epidemiology and communicable diseases department in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said: “Cases are going up in several other states. With that, Delhi should immediately scale up surveillance and tests. The state should have anyway gone slow on some relaxations, especially those concerning closed spaces, such as movie halls and banquets. So, Delhi cannot scale down tests .
Imposing conditions such as RT-PCR test for people arriving from other states should help.”
Health workers to get jabs till February 25
Only 46.5% of the total registered health workers in Delhi have received the vaccine against Covid-19 so far, with just a day left for the vaccination drive to close for them. Delhi is among the seven states and union territories that have seen less than 50% coverage of healthcare workers.
As per central government, the list of health care workers will freeze after February 20 with a leeway of five days allowed for those who might have been left out.
N-E, Shahdara had lowest cases between Feb 1-16
Between February 1 and 16, north-east and Shahdara revenue districts in Delhi recorded the lowest and second-lowest number of new Covid-19 cases and test positivity rates respectively, government data said.
Between February 1 and 16, north-east district recorded 52 cases for 74,429 tests, reflecting a positivity rate of 0.07%. Shahdara recorded 92 cases for 98,156 tests — a positivity rate of 0.09%.
In this period, Delhi recorded overall positivity rate of 0.25%.
The highest number of cases and positivity rate was recorded in south-west Delhi between February 1 and 16, when the district logged 311 new cases for 58,021 tests – a positivity rate of 0.54%, the data said.