There is “no significant” change in the percentage of people, who have developed antibodies against COVID-19, as per the sixth serological survey, compared to the previous such survey, according to an official privy to the development.
Submitted to govt.
The result of the sixth serological survey, which was done in April, has been submitted to the Delhi government last week.
But the survey was stopped in April due to the surge in COVID-19 cases and could not reach the planned target of samples.
Around 13,000 blood samples from 141 wards were collected against a target of 28,000 samples from all 272 wards in the city, officials said.
The result of the sixth sero survey is yet to be made public by the Delhi government.
“We cannot compare this result with the previous survey as we have covered only 141 wards this time compared to all 272 wards last time. At best, we can compare the wards from where we have collected data this time with last time. Also, the government is yet to accept the report of the results of the survey,” an official said.
“There is no significant change in the seroprevelance this time as compared to last time,” a second official said, but did not disclose whether it is less or more than the last survey.
As per the fifth survey done in January, 56.13% of over 28,000 people, whose blood samples were collected from across the city, were found to have developed antibodies against COVID-19.
131 new cases
The downward trend in COVID-19 cases continued in the national capital with 131 new cases being reported in the past 24 hours, taking the total cases to 14,31,270, according to a health bulletin released by the Delhi government on Monday.
Also, 16 deaths were reported and the total number of deaths stood at 24,839. A total of 59,556 tests were done in a day, the bulletin said. Of the total cases, 14,03,205 people have recovered and there are 3,226 active cases.
The test positivity rate was 0.22%, which means that less than one person out of 400 people taking COVID-19 tests are now positive for the virus.
Vaccine stock
With less than a day’s stock of Covishield left for the 18-44 age group, AAP leader Atishi on Monday said that the Delhi government will shut down half of the centres administering the vaccine for the age group from Tuesday.
“From tomorrow, more than half of the centres where Covishield was being given as the first dose, will close down. It is our appeal to the Central government, that the youth of Delhi want to get vaccinated and for this, the pending vaccines should be made available to Delhi,” the AAP leader said.
