Delhi has crossed another grim milestone by registering more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day. On Wednesday, 5,673 new cases of the viral infection were reported in the daily health bulletin.
The 4,853 cases reported Tuesday were the highest so far. Before that, 4,473 new cases reported on Sept. 16 had been the highest number of cases in the city during the second spike. The city saw its first increase in cases in June-July, when the union’s Interior Ministry intervened to control the spread of the infection. An expert committee headed by NITI Ayog member Dr. VK Paul said the number of cases in Delhi could reach 15,000 a day during the winter months.
The positivity rate (proportion of samples that tested positive among those tested) also leaned above 9%. This happened for the first time since the first week of September, when Delhi was only running about 20,000 tests a day.
Once the government tripled it to around 60,000 a day, the positivity rate dropped. However, when testing was scaled up, most testing was done using the rapid antigen method, which is inexpensive, easy to implement in clinics, and gives results in 15 minutes. However, it is also more likely to give false negatives for people who actually might have the infection.
The number of cases in the city began to rise again in October when the government expanded the more reliable RT-PCR tests. On Wednesday, more than 17,000 RT-PCR tests were performed in the city for the first time.
“Now we are testing people specifically. If a person tests positive, we look for all their relatives and contacts and we test them. This strategy is being closely monitored. What we have seen is that if a person tests positive, generally several members of the same family test positive. This is the reason why the positivity rate has increased, ”Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said during a media interaction on Tuesday.
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