Empty beds at the CWG village Covid care centre. As per Sunday’s health bulletin, only about 10% of the 15,428 hospital beds reserved for Covid patients were occupied. (Tashi Tobgyal) Maintaining a consistent decline, Delhi reported 3,674 Covid cases on Sunday at a positivity rate of 6.37%, a drop from 7.41% on Saturday.
Delhi government officials said that the case trajectory over the past week has made it clear that the worst is over in the capital for now.
“We had seen this in South Africa as well. Cases rose very quickly and then reduced at a similar pace. Delhi reached a new peak of cases in this wave, but hospitals were not overwhelmed. This is the right time to reopen activities and institutions, including schools, as there is clear evidence that we are in a better position now, especially with vaccination,” said a senior government official.
As per Sunday’s health bulletin, only about 10% of the 15,428 hospital beds reserved for Covid patients were occupied. Of 1,508 patients admitted, 447 were on oxygen support while 143 were on ventilator support.
Despite the city crossing the daily cases peak recorded in April, the number of patients on ventilator support has remained low. Less than a tenth of patients admitted in hospitals have needed ventilator support, data shows.
In January, the highest occupancy of ventilators was 164 out of around 1,400 beds. During the second wave in May, in contrast, all 2,500 ventilator beds available at the time were occupied.
Over the past two months, meanwhile, the overall case fatality rate in the city has dipped. Between May 2020 and September 2021, the rate stood at a consistent 1.74%. Since then, however, the rate has dipped to 1.41%.
“The two main observations during this wave are that those falling ill are not experiencing very severe lung infections and pneumonia. The second is that the death rate is very low. Most of the people who have died had serious co-morbid conditions. It also seems like vaccinations have helped save many people from severe symptoms,” the official said.
Out of close to 1.5 crore adults eligible for vaccination in the city, 1.2 crore have been fully vaccinated so far. Over 8 lakh children in the 15-17 age group have also been vaccinated.
The pace of the precautionary dose, however, has been slowing down. So far, around 2.7 lakh have been administered the third dose.
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