With rapidly falling COVID-19 active case load, dipping fatality and positivity rate, and rising number of vacant beds, Delhi is currently among the handful of States/UTs in India that has managed to contain and reverse a growing pandemic load. Delhi has slipped from the top three red zones in the country to the ninth position.
While the Central government said it is ready to replicate lessons learnt here in other high burden States, those part of this move point out that Delhi’s dipping COVID-19 numbers is “no magic pill”.
Sample this: with a current recovery rate of 90%, Delhi’s active case load at the end of June hovered around 27,847. It has now more than halved, at a little over 10,000 cases. Moreover, from June 22 to 28, the city recorded 448 deaths while this past week it has come down to 177. Delhi is among the 24 States/UTs that have better tests per million than the national average of 15,119. The Capital is clocking 57,855 tests per million, second to Goa which tests 84,927 per million.
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“This is a result of micro planning, scrupulous implementation, and sustained emphasis on testing, tracking and treating,” said a senior Central government official.
Relentless measures
“The trend runs parallel to overall improvement that the country has witnessed. There has been a 63.8% increase in recovered cases in the last 14 days, indicating that the COVID-19 response and management driven by the Centre’s strategy is yielding desired results,” noted the Union Health Ministry.
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Speaking about the turnaround that the Capital has made, Vice Chancellor of Indraprastha University Mahesh Verma, who heads an expert committee of the Delhi government for COVID management, said: “A number of factors have helped Delhi. With the passage of time, the awareness about the disease has increased. Initially, there were a lot of grey areas. Testing, tracing and treating also improved over time. A lot of guidelines were updated as we gained more knowledge about the disease, which improved the situation. Home isolation and plasma therapy also helped. In Delhi, an advantage was that it was a joint effort of the State and Central governments, railways and others. Everyone brought in their expertise.”
Wary of complacency
However, Mr. Verma warned that Delhi should not become complacent. “There are reports of a second or third surge in other countries. For instance, Hong Kong is witnessing a third surge. We have to have our guards up,” he said.
When asked whether parts of Delhi have attained herd immunity, Mr. Verma said: “The last sero survey showed that about 23% people have developed immunity against the disease and it was in June. When the results of the ongoing survey will be out it will be much clearer whether Delhi has attained herd immunity or we are moving towards it.”
The Central government, on its part, had roped in senior experts, including member NITI Aayog V.K. Paul, All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) head Randeep Guleria, and Indian Council of Medical Research head Balaram Bhargava among others to prepare a blueprint for COVID-19 containment when the Capital was witnessing a surge in June.
“Testing, tracking and treating were done in an extensive manner with the Capital ensuring that contact-tracing was done within 72 hours of case discovery. The contacts were up to 20-30 persons, which is among the highest in the country. The Central government team also ensured that the city reworked its containment zone planning, and strict measures were implemented not just in the zone perimeter but even within the containment zone,” said a senior Central government official.
Repeated survey
He added that other key measures included repeated house-to-house survey for people with symptoms, immediate physical isolation of people living in densely-populated areas, enhanced testing within containment zones, ambulance management to ensure zero refusal rate, roping in private car companies to run as ambulances, ensuring that real time data of bed occupancy be made public along with better handling of mortuaries and asking hospitals to strictly comply with the Centre’s treatment protocol. All these helped stabilise the situation.