Situation much better than month ago, but remain cautious: Kejriwal

The Covid-19 situation in the Capital was on a worrying trajectory until a few weeks ago but a concerted effort helped turn the situation around, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday, cautioning people that the outbreak could spike again if they become complacent.

“Today, I am happy that we have waded through the tough times we had seen at the beginning of June. Our hard work has paid off. Today, only around 26,000 active cases are there in Delhi against our projection of 60,000 cases. This projection was made based on a portal created by the government of India,” he added. Kejriwal also pointed to other data points such as availability of beds and recovery rate to back his statement.

Delhi ended Wednesday with 89,802 cases of which 27,007 are active. It has so far seen 2,803 deaths, and 59,992 people have recovered from the coronavirus disease.

In a digital press conference, Kejriwal steered clear of claiming that the worst of the pandemic is behind the city-state -- as indicated by numbers of the last week -- and instead urged people to strictly follow the only regimen known to prevent infections: wearing masks, maintaining hygiene, and distancing socially.

Delhi saw a peak of 3947 cases on June 23, but the number has come down steadily since then despite the number of tests increasing. In the eight days since (including Wednesday, July 1) the city has seen, 3788, 3390, 3460, 2948, 2889, 2084, 2199, and 2,442 cases. The daily positivity rate (number of people testing positive to number of tests), which was hovering around a peak of 32% in mid-June has since fallen and was 12.24% on Wednesday.

Although Kejriwal asked people not to rely on reports circulating in social media that the peak of Covid-19 cases in Delhi was over., he did admit that “the situation now is not as scary as it was around a month ago.”

“But, this does not mean we get complacent and stop preparing. This virus is totally unpredictable. It is possible that the cases suddenly spike again. Some experts are saying in social media that Delhi has already seen its peak and now the cases will only decline. I request all of you not to pay attention to these experts at the moment. Keep wearing masks, follow social distancing and keep washing or sanitising your hands,” he said.

The chief minister said his government would continue to prepare more beds and other Covid logistics at a war footing. “There is a proverb in English – hope for the best and prepare for the worst. We are preparing for the worst-case scenario.”

With cases peaking in the middle of June, there were fears about the availability of hospital beds. The prediction then was that 15,000 beds would be required by June-end, Kejriwal said. Hospital admissions were so high that every day, at least 250 new beds were required to be added, he added.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia cited projections that said Delhi could see 5.5 lakh cases by the end of July, a move that Union home minister Amit Shah said in an interview earlier this week caused “fear” and forced the Union government to take a hand in helping the city-state’s Aam Aadmi Party government deal with the issue.

Things have improved since, Kejriwal said.

“But, today the situation is just the opposite. In the last one week, bed occupancy has reduced by 450 instead of increasing. It is also an indication that serious patients of Corona are also decreasing. Today we have 15,000 beds ready in Delhi for Covid-19 in various hospitals and of this, only 5,800 are occupied. Until a month ago, we had only 8,500 beds for Covid.”

According to the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government on Wednesday, the city has 15,242 hospital beds, up from around 13,600 a day before.

The chief minister added that the recovery rate is also on the rise. He said that a month ago, the recovery rate was 38%, and that this has now increased to 64%.

“Delhi has seen a total of over 87,000 cases so far, of which over 58,000 have recovered. On June 23, nearly 4,000 cases were recorded and yesterday (Tuesday), around 2,200 new cases were. So, in the past one week, the daily (number of) fresh cases also appears to have reduced by a half. But, this may again spike,” he said. The chief minister also said the number of daily deaths due to Covid-19 have declined. Covid deaths in Delhi peaked in the first half of June.

“There was a day when nearly 125 deaths were recorded. Today, the daily Covid deaths are hovering aorund 60-65. We have to reduce this further.”

Kejriwal said Delhi has scaled up testing across the city and that the positivity rate has seen a decline over the past two weeks. “Earlier, of every 100 tests, 31 would test positive. Now, 13 positive cases are found per 100 tests,” he said. According to the Hindustan Times dashboard, Delhi has carried out 29,037 tests for every million of its population.

According to government data, at the beginning of June, Delhi used to conduct around 5,000 tests every day. This now has been scaled up to 17,000-20,000 every day.Three types of tests are currently being conducted in Delhi. The first one is the RT-PCR test, which is a confirmatory test, but whose results come in after a minimum of five hours. The second one is the rapid antigen test (which is highly accurate in identifying positive cases) where the results take 30 minutes to come. The third is antibody tests, which is being conducted as part of the serological survey in Delhi (and which are not being used for identifying cases) to understand the extent of the spread of the virus.

“I think it is too early to say whether the situation has stabilised in Delhi. We have to wait and watch, at least for the 14-day incubation period to see what happens. If the numbers keep coming down, great. But, there is a possibility that as the number of cases in the current containment zones come down with people in the area already having had the infection, newer hotspots might emerge,” said Amit Singh, associate professor, Centre for Infectious Disease Research, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.