But Delhi is not the only city to be reeling under high case burden, data indicates that growth rates in the NCR region have been similar to that of Delhi.

On Wednesday, as Delhi recorded another high in terms of daily infections, adding close to 4,000 Covid cases, Mumbai added its lowest tally in 40 days. The national capital only was 1,879 infections behind Mumbai. And, given its growth rate — Delhi’s daily average growth of 5.9% is thrice of Mumbai’s — it is expected to overtake Mumbai on Thursday.

But Delhi is not the only city to be reeling under high case burden, data indicates that growth rates in the NCR region have been similar to that of Delhi. Gurugram registered a daily growth rate of 5.5%, Faridabad, on the other hand, has seen cases grow at 9.3% over the last two weeks.

Faridabad’s cases have trebled to 2,596 over the last fortnight. Death growth rates in the NCR region, however, are higher than Delhi. While Delhi recorded a daily average growth of 7.5% starting June 10, in Gurugram and Faridabad the rates are 15% and 12%, respectively. Ghaziabad, although has a lower case growth, is recording a 12% growth in deaths. Ghaziabad with 942 cases has a death rate of 5%, and this is almost double in Meerut.

With Delhi testing considerably higher than adjoining areas and positivity rates showing no sign of coming down, there may not be any respite for the national capital in the coming days. Meanwhile, porous borders will ensure that infection spreads across.

Despite conducting almost four times the test than Mumbai, both cities have almost similar positivity rate. Delhi’s positivity rate over the last week averaged 26%, whereas Mumbai’s was only slightly higher at 27%.

However, Delhi is more comfortable as far as hospital infrastructure is concerned. Only 40% of hospital beds and 65% of ventilators are occupied in the city, whereas in Mumbai the occupancy rates are 78% and 96%. But Mumbai has improved over the last week or so. Until a week ago the city had only 1 ICU bed and 11 ventilators left, but by Tuesday it had 100 ICU beds and 30 ventilators.