The current wave of COVID-19 has peaked in the city and cases are expected to fall now, Health Minister Satyendra Jain said on Saturday. “In Delhi, the[COVID wave] peak has been reached... For the past five to six days, hospital admissions have been stagnant. This is an indicator that cases are decreasing in the city,” the Minister said.
Delhi on Saturday reported 20,718 new COVID-19 cases over 24 hours but the test positivity rate (TPR) was recorded at 30.64%, which is the highest in more than seven months.
A total of 67,624 tests were conducted over 24 hours, down from 79,578 on Friday, according to the health bulletin released by the Delhi government. On Thursday, 28,867 fresh cases were reported in the city, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic. Friday saw 24,383 cases and TPR of 30.64% (same as Saturday) over 24 hours.Of the total 15,478 hospital beds, 83.66% were vacant on Saturday.
Opposition smells ploy
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri accused the Delhi government of “conducting fewer tests” to show that the number of COVID patients in the Capital was decreasing, a claim denied by the Delhi government.
Mr. Bidhuri referred to the number of tests over the last six days as “evidence”, stating that when 22,751 new patients were reported on January 9, more than 96,000 tests were done; but on January 14, when 24,383 patients were identified, the tests were reduced to 79,000.
“The infection rate on January 9 was 23% while on January 14 it was more than 30%. This means that if the tests were not reduced on January 14 and there were one lakh tests, the number of patients would have gone above 30,000,” Mr. Bidhuri said.
“The government is pretending to control COVID on papers by reducing the number of tests. Pharmacists are selling thousands of kits daily and obviously thousands of patients are turning COVID-positive, but they are not in government records,” he also said.
Responding to the allegations, Mr. Jain, said, “We have not reduced testing and we are following the Central government guidelines. We are testing everyone who is coming to take the test.”
