Spiralling Covid-19 Positivity Rate in Delhi Shows Infections are Unmanageable, Says Expert

The Test Positivity Rate in Delhi has gone above the 5 per cent-mark, clearly showing that the infection is unmanageable, said Dr. N K Mehra, emeritus scientist and former dean of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

“In January, the test positivity rate in Delhi had come down to around 1%. It remained low till about two weeks ago. But now, the positivity rate is rising rapidly leading to an exponential rise in cases,” he said.

The test positivity rate- the number of positive cases from those tested for the infection. In Delhi, TPR crossed five per cent on Monday, a landmark figure that reflects how the infections are out of control. In the past 24 hours, the state health department informed that over one lakh people underwent Covid testing, of which 5,100 were tested positive for the virus.

In the past five days, 64 people have succumbed to coronavirus infection in the capital, the tally includes 17 fresh fatalities on Tuesday. The death toll in the city has reached 11,113 while the total tally has crossed 6.85 lakh. Currently, Delhi has the fifth-highest tally of Covid-19 cases.

Maharashtra tops the list with 30 lakh cases followed by Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. “We need to scale up vaccination to save lives. The government has issued orders to keep one-third of the state-run vaccination centres open 24×7, which is a good idea. But we must also take measures to remove vaccine hesitancy and ensure that those on the priority list are covered under the mass immunisation programme at the earliest,” a senior doctor at AIIMS told Times of India.

In the first week of February, Delhi was recording 130 to 140 fresh cases daily, the number has gone up nearly over 30 times now. The number of active cases in the state has touched 14,589, leading to a huge rush for admissions in hospitals. The overall occupancy of Covid-19 beds, which was below 20% till about a few weeks ago, touched 46% on Monday.

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