After the Delhi High Court warned that Delhi could soon become the “COVID capital” of the country, the Centre, too, expressed concern over the pandemic situation in the city. On November 4, the city reported 6,842 new COVID-19 cases and 51 deaths. Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the surge in the number of cases and the high positivity rate in the city’s north, central, north east, east, north west and south east districts of Delhi, was worrying. “The recovery rate of India is currently more than 92 per cent while that of Delhi is 89 per cent. Against a national case fatality rate of 1.49 per cent, Delhi continues to have a fatality rate of 1.71 per cent,” he said.
The minister also pointed out that Delhi continued to have a “highly skewed” rapid antigen test (RAT) to RT-PCR ratio— 77 per cent of the tests are RAT-based while RT-PCR comprises only 23 per cent of the total tests, he said at a meeting on the COVID-19 situation in the city, where the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain and district magistrates of the city were present. Vardhan said that false negative results might give way to complacency among the COVID-19 infected, and stressed on the need for mandatory testing of all RAT-negative persons if they develop ILI/SARI symptoms after the test. According to the ICMR protocol, those who are symptomatic and test negative for RAT are supposed to go for a RT-PCR confirmatory test.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has blamed the COVID-19 crisis in the city for pollution and appealed to people to refrain from bursting crackers. But experts such as Dr Sujeet K. Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control, have warned state health authorities to be alert in the forthcoming festive and winter season. The authorities have been requested to form a committee of medical experts for better clinical management of COVID-19 patients, Singh said.
At the meeting, Baijal said that Delhi administration has been cautioned by experts about “possible surges” because of ongoing festive season and facilitation of inter-state transport. Baijal said that he hoped that awareness campaigns would be successful in changing public behaviour during COVID-19. He also informed that the administration is working to inculcate changes in standard operating procedures for more efficient containment of the disease spread.
Several corporate hospitals in the city reported shortage of beds for COVID-19 patients. “We are dealing with an unprecedented surge in the number of COVID-19 patients post Dussehra. The situation is expected to worsen in the coming days, and it will tough to manage the deluge,” a senior official of a corporate hospital chain who did not wish to be identified told THE WEEK.
At the meeting on the city’s COVID-19 situation, Jain asked the Centre to increase the number of ICU beds at AIIMS, New Delhi, and other central hospitals to augment the present capacity which is under strain due to the deluge of patients. Heath Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that effective contact tracing implied that the city authorities completed the exercise within the first 72 hours. He requested the Delhi administration to shift patients requiring critical care to the Defence Medical Hospital Facility in Dhaula-Kuan that has a provision for 125 ICU beds.
