NEWSCAN
Delhi seems to flatten COVID-19 curve NEW DELHI: The condition of the coronavirus pandemic in Delhi in the last one month has improved significantly and the COVID-19 curve seemed to have flattened the curve. The national capital has so far reported a total of 1,35,598 cases, out of which 1,20,930 coronavirus patients have been cured. There are 10,705 active cases in the capital city, while 3,963 have succumbed to the deadly virus. The recovery rate in Delhi, however, increased to 89.18%, while the death rate stands at 2.92%. Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister, Delhi, in a tweet on July 27, said, “Delhi flattens the death curve, COVID deaths down 44 per cent in June. Personally, this has been my most important mission from the beginning of the pandemic. We will not get complacent even now. This figure needs to come down to ZERO.” Delhi’s daily figures have been steadily dropping since June 23, when 3,947 cases were reported in a single day. At the time, Delhi was one of the fastest growing states in terms of daily COVID-19 cases, growing at nearly
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six per cent every day.However, this rate of growth dropped to 1.21 per cent on July 21. Satyendar Jain, Health Minister, Government of Delhi, on August 1, said that Delhi’s doubling rate of coronavirus cases has now gone up to 50 while across India it is 21 days. The ranking of Delhi in terms of total coronavirus positive cases has dropped from the second position to the twelfth position among all states in India. Over the last two weeks, during which the slowdown took place, Delhi has regularly screened between 20,000 and 25,000 samples every day, much higher than it was doing earlier and a total of 10,32,785 tests to detect COVID-19 infection had been conducted in Delhi till August 1.Increased testing, in fact, is one of the reasons for a major turnaround in Delhi. As the city increased the testing about a month ago — at that time, the city was screening just about 5,000 samples every day— there was a significant rise in the number of people diagnosed with the virus. The city registered between 2,000 and 3,500
cases every day for approximately ten days. At that time, only Maharashtra was reporting higher numbers. It was also the period when Delhi overtook Mumbai as the city with the country’s highest caseload. The increased testing could have enabled early detection of infected patients, and new health facilities, like the Sardar Patel COVID Care Centre and Hospital, have been successful in keeping them isolated so that the disease spread is restrained and controlled.There might be other reasons as well for the drop in cases, but increased testing has definitely played a significant role. The fruits of Delhi’s containment and treatment efforts began revealing themselves in numbers at the start of July. The pattern of recovery was also followed by a decrease in the number of hospitalized patients that came as a relief for the government, which had intended to turn Delhi’s stadiums into COVID-19 care centers if no change was observed on a daily basis. Experts, including Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), believe that the COVID-19 curve is flattening, and the city may have crossed the peak. Dr. Guleria, during a press conference on July 20, said that looking at Delhi’s COVID-19 data, it seems that the curve has been flattened and it is even showing a downward trend. Certain areas have hit their peak in COVID-19 cases, and this seems to have been achieved by Delhi as cases have significantly decreased.Certain areas have yet to reach the peak. Cases are increasing in certain states and will reach the peak a little later. He added that this does not mean that Delhi should let its guard down. It is best to remain vigilant, considering the events of occurrence of a second wave of the pandemic in other cities and countries around the world. If social-distancing norms and other COVID social behaviours are not followed rigorously, there is a possibility of resurgence of the pandemic in the city.
