NEW DELHI: The recovery rate of people suffering from COVID-19 in hospitals has gone up in the national capital in the past few days. Till April 17, the Delhi government in its daily health bulletin had mentioned the number of patients discharged, which was 72. From April 18 the government introduced a new column of cases ‘recovered’.
Going by the government report, the recovery rate of patients in the last six days has been comparatively higher. However, the figure is not equal to those discharged.From April 18 till April 23, more than 600 patients have recovered.
On April 21, 180 COVID-19 patients recovered on the same day, the highest so far. “All recovered patients are not discharged. Recovered cases are those who reported negative on repeat sampling,” said a health department official.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Thursday morning said there were 2,248 coronavirus patients in the national capital and 32 per cent of these have recovered from the infection. These numbers were later updated as 128 fresh cases were reported later in the evening.“So far, 2,248 positive cases have been found in Delhi and out of these, 724 or 32 per cent have recovered,” Jain said. So far, Delhi has reported 50 deaths.
Dr SK Sarin, director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, and head of the five-member COVID-19 committee formed in Delhi said that a person needs to test negative in two consecutive tests before being discharged.
“There is also 14-day quarantine for those who have recovered. However, there are recommendations to quarantine them for 28 days because they may still be infective. The best option is to go for 21 days home quarantine,” he added.
Another official associated with a designated hospital added that many of those who have recovered are sent to COVID Care Centres in Mandoli and Sultanpur.
“There are certain patients who have recovered and have no symptoms. They are done with their clinical recovery and completed the 14- day quarantine but due to some administrative reason, their reports have not come yet. We have one negative report. Many cannot return home now, like those from Markaz and so they are yet to be discharged. Many of Markaz patients have recovered,” added the official.