Some hope: As Covid hospitalisations begin to plateau, Delhi health minister says cases may dip soon

This drop in numbers, however, could be a reflection of the change in the testing strategy. All hospitals have been reporting a majority of Covid-19 as an “incidental” finding in patients that come in for the treatment of other conditions. The new testing strategy by the union health ministry released two days ago states, “Asymptomatic patients undergoing surgical/non-surgical invasive procedures including pregnant women in/near labour who are hospitalised for delivery should not be tested unless warranted or symptoms develop.”

Earlier, all patients needing admission or undergoing any procedure were being tested in order to prevent in-hospital spread of the infection.

At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), a senior doctor said that the total number of admissions has almost stagnated.

“The number of patients coming in and those dying or being discharged is almost the same, hence the total number of admissions have stagnated. It looks like we are close to the peak of the current wave of infections” the doctor said.

The situation is similar at Delhi government-run Guru Teg Bahadur hospital in the trans-Yamuna area.

“There are around 24 patients currently admitted to the 500 Covid-19 beds we have at the Ram Leela ground. The number has remained between 18 and 25 for the last few days,” a senior official said.

“There are 20,000 cases being recorded for some days now, the positivity has also remained close to 25%. The hospital admissions are also not going up, they have plateaued. This is a good sign. Yesterday, only 2,209 beds were occupied and 12,400 beds were free. Nearly six times the beds are vacant and the occupancy is less than 15%. This is when we have just released 15,000 beds; we have preparation for 37,000 beds,” said Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday.

He added, “It seems like the cases will start going down soon. The restrictions will be eased when the cases start going down.”

Currently, there are around 74,000 active cases of whom around 2,000 are hospitalised. In comparison, when there were 74,000 active cases during the Covid-19 wave in April-May last year, there were almost 14,000 persons admitted to city hospitals.

The wave peaked at around 20,000 hospitalisations and over 28,000 new cases a day.