At 1,600 cases, Delhi’s Covid positivity rate crosses 5% with 30,000 tests

There have been four other single-day instances when the positivity rate crossed the 5% mark this month, mostly owing to fewer tests.

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Hospitalisations have remained at just over 100 in the capital. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)

The number of fresh Covid-19 cases in the national capital shot past the 1,500-mark, with 1,607 cases recorded in Friday’s health bulletin, officials said. Not just the absolute number of cases, the positivity rate – proportion of samples tested that return positive – also went over the 5% mark even with more than 30,000 tests.

The positivity rate, which is indicative of the spread of infection in the community, stood at 5.28% on Friday with 30,459 tests having been conducted, as per the bulletin. There have been four other single-day instances when the positivity rate crossed the 5% mark this month, mostly owing to fewer tests. In fact, the rate likely remained under 5% over the last two weeks because the number of tests was gradually increased from less than 10,000 to over 30,000. The positivity rate usually tends to drop if the number of tests is increased suddenly.

The increase, experts believe, is because of all Covid-19 norms being relaxed. There is no threat from a new variant so far, according to genomic sequencing labs. The Delhi labs had said that it picked a few sequences of a sub-variant of omicron’s BA2 called BA2.12.1 that was first reported in New York. This, however, has not been confirmed by the genomic sequencing consortium INSACOG.

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So far, INSACOG has found a handful of the recombinant variants after searching for them once they were reported elsewhere. These, officials said, have not spread or caused severe disease in Delhi or in the country so far.

Read | Delhi govt has provided Covid relief of Rs 1 crore to families of 30 frontline workers: Manish Sisodia

The number of deaths has also gone up through the month, with 16 deaths reported over the last 14 days compared to five deaths over the preceding 14 days. Hospitalisations have remained at just over 100 in the capital.

Doctors say the symptoms resemble that of the Omicron variant that led to a surge in cases in December-end to January in the capital. Even though the number of cases crossed the previous record of 28,395 during the Delta-driven wave in last April and May, the hospitalisations peaked at around 2,734 during the Omicron wave – which was much lower compared to 20,142 during the Delta wave. The highest single-day death toll at the height of the Omicron wave was 45, whereas for Delta it was 448.

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