Covid-19 in Delhi: 63% of residents don't want restrictions to be lifted till positivity rate reaches 5%

Amid the increasing cases of Covid-19 in India, and the TPR at 21% in Delhi, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government had imposed a series of restrictions to curb the spread of the virus. 

 

New Delhi reported on Thursday 12,306 COVID cases from 57,920 tests conducted within the country's capital, and there were 43 related deaths. According to the Delhi State Health Bulletin, the TPR has shown a gradual decline at 21.5%, which had peaked on January 14th at 30.64%. Hospital beds for COVID also continue to remain vacant, with 82.48% vacant out of the total 15,603 beds for COVID-19 patients. 

 

The Delhi government maintains that while current restrictions have been effective to curb COVID cases, cases have now reduced and hospitalisations have reduced considerably. 

 

Further, businesses continue to get impacted. The traders and shopkeepers recently urged the government to remove the odd-even rules and allow shops to function on weekends as they remain unable to recovered losses incurred over the last 2 years. 

 

 

Now, a survey conducted by India's leading Community Social Media platform, LocalCircles has made it clear that 63% of Delhi residents will be ok with the removal of COVID restrictions (night and weekend curfews, odd-even shops opening, etc) once the test positivity rate falls to 5%.

 

The survey conducted by LocalCircles received 7,598 responses from residents across all districts of Delhi. 66% of the respondents were men while 34% were women.

 

To understand what the citizens are thinking, the survey asked them, "What should be the criteria to remove current COVID-related restrictions (weekend and night curfew, market odd-even shops, etc) imposed in Delhi?"

 

To this, 11% of responders said the "Test Positivity Rate should fall to 20% minimum", 26% said it should fall to "10% minimum", another 26% said it should be "5% minimum", 21% said "2% minimum", and 5% said "1% minimum". 

 

Only 5% of residents of Delhi said, "Just remove all the restrictions right now without delay". 

 

The findings of the survey clearly indicate that 63% of Delhi residents will be ok with the removal of COVID restrictions, (including night and weekend curfews, odd-even shops opening, etc) once the Test Positivity Rate falls to 5%. 

 

To summarise, a majority of residents of Delhi are currently not ok with the removal of restrictions in Delhi. 

 

LocalCircles will share the findings of this survey with the Chief Minister, the Office of Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, and the Chief Secretary so that when a way forward is finalised regarding lockdown in Delhi, this collective public feedback is also taken into account.