Jain said that there was a shortage of ICU beds in some well-known private hospitals since people coming from outside Delhi are going to these hospitals as they have heard about them.(File)Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain Wednesday said that cases in Delhi have seemingly hit a plateau and that in the next one-two weeks, a downward trend will be seen “definitely”. “The positivity rate has come down to 7% over the past week, as compared to 8.5% to 9% earlier. Overall, since the beginning of the pandemic, it has come down to 9% from the earlier 12%,” Jain said.
On Wednesday, 3,714 new cases were seen in Delhi and 59,580 people were tested. Total cases now are over 2.5 lakh and 5,087 people have died so far. The city’s compounded daily growth rate over seven days stands at 1.57%. This was 0.81% a month ago. Over the past 15 days, Delhi has seen an average of 3,715 cases per day.
Towards the end of July and early August, new cases had dipped significantly and remained under 1,000 for several days. The previous peak was seen in mid-June.
However, as cases started to rise again in September, the Delhi government ordered that testing be increased manifold, and the number of people tested per day went from an average of around 17,000 per day to over 60,000 per day in recent days.
Most of the increase in testing in the city has been fuelled by the Rapid Antigen Test kits but after the High Court asked it to also pay special attention to the more accurate RT-PCR tests, the Delhi government and private labs have been analysing close to 10,000 samples a day. Increased testing, Jain said, was the main reason behind the rise in cases and will also be the cause of the dip that he said would follow.
“The trend has stabilised now. Earlier you saw a sudden increase in cases as the number of tests conducted went up. We are now doing around 60,000 tests per day. We found the cases and isolated them at home or in hospitals. You will definitely see a downward trend in the next two weeks,” he said.
At present, there are 15,804 Covid hospital beds in Delhi, of which 7,051 or 45% are occupied.
Jain said that there was a shortage of ICU beds in some well-known private hospitals since people coming from outside Delhi are going to these hospitals as they have heard about them.
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