NEW DELHI: As coronavirus cases in the national capital continues to surge, there appears to be a disparity in the number of active cases and that of patients admitted at hospitals, home quarantine and COVID centres.
The AAP led Delhi government issues a daily health bulletin in which the first section contains a column that states the number of active cases in the national capital. In the sections that follow, one shows the number of patients admitted in dedicated COVID hospitals and also states the number of patients currently under ventilation and in ICUs.
This is followed by patients admitted in dedicated COVID health centres such as — Ayurvedic and Unani Tibba College and Nehru Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital.
A separate column has information about those admitted to COVID care centres where mostly asymptomatic patients are kept, such as — Narela DDA Flats, DUSIB Flats Sultanpuri, Mandoli and others. A single line mentions the number of positive patients kept in home isolation.
Based on Thursday’s bulletin, there are currently 8,470 active cases. Out of these 2,196 patients are in hospitals, 129 in COVID health centres, 496 in care centres and 4,227 in home isolation.
However, the addition of these number patients stands at 7,048, a difference of 1,422 from that of a number of active cases.
While the disparity varies, the difference in the active patient count and those admitted in hospitals, centres and home isolation is present in every health bulletin issued by the health department over the past week.
“Detail of every patient cannot be captured in real-time, it’s dynamic data. Some patients are entering our system and some are leaving… so at any given time, the calculation cannot be exact,” said a senior health official regarding the disparity.
Numbers not matching up
The difference in the active patient count and those admitted in hospitals, centres and home quarantine is present in every health bulletin issued by the health department over the past week.