NEW DELHI: New year day on Saturday brought grim news to the capital with Delhi recording 2,716 fresh cases of Covid- 19, a spike of 51% over Friday. This is the highest single-day rise since May 26, 2021.
With one fatality reported, the positivity rate climbed to 3.64%. Going by the Graded Response Action Plan prepared by the government last year in August, Delhi is just 1.36% away from reaching the red alert phase. The city has already crossed the orange alert phase, which has a positivity rate of 2% for two consecutive days. But the Arvind Kejriwal government on December 29 had announced that no fresh curbs would be imposed in Delhi till further orders as the hospital bed occupancy was very low.
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“This was expected because the curbs were delayed. There were no restrictions on visitors coming from abroad initially. A majority of the people also did not avoid large gatherings and wear face masks,” said Rahul Bhargava of Fortis Hospital.
“The hampered ability to detect Omicron is another reason because we are only doing 0.55% genome testing yet. By January 16 we can get 6-14 lakh cases daily because the doubling time is pretty rapid. We have seen this in South Africa.”
But Suresh Kumar, director of Lok Nayak Hospital, was less alarmist. “We have only eight Covid patients. The spike in cases is not dangerous because most of the patients who are reporting Covid are in home isolation. Only selective people are requiring hospitalisation.”