Capital’s Covid-19 cases may overtake Mumbai’s: Experts

Low Testing Rate, Poor Contact Tracing Among Major Problems

DurgeshNandan.Jha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  21.06.2020

The Covid-19 count in Delhi touched 56,746 with 3,630 new cases — the highest in a single day — being reported on Saturday.

As many as 17,533 people were tested for the disease in the 24 hours of which 3,630 (20%) tested positive, officials said. Delhi’s death toll mounted to 2,112 with 77 people succumbing to Covid-19 in 24 hours, as per latest data. A 39-year-old doctor is among those who have died due to Covid-19 in the national capital.

On June 1, Delhi had only 20,834 Covid-19 cases and 523 fatalities due to the disease compared to Mumbai’s tally of 41,099 cases and 1,319 deaths.

However, in 20 days, Delhi’s numbers have come close to Mumbai’s where 65,239 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 as on Saturday and 3,561 people have died due to it, and experts believe, the national capital might overtake the financial capital of the country in Covid-19 numbers. Where did Delhi go wrong?

According to Dr K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), contact tracing wasn’t carried out effectively in Delhi. “Mumbai did a much better job of tracing the contacts of positive cases which helped limit the spread of the disease, even in places like Dharavi – one of Asia’s largest slums,” he said.

The PHFI president said post-lockdown, when the Covid-19 count started surging in the national capital, the government shifted its focus to ramping up infrastructure to hospitalise the seriously ill.

Public health measures such as contact tracing and house-to-house surveillance, which are equally important to limiting disease spread, were not carried out effectively, he added.

“Even in the containment zones, the authorities failed to ensure strict social distancing. There were reports of people moving freely inside even as the area was barricaded and outsiders weren’t allowed in them,” Dr Reddy said.

Lower testing rate was another key problem, said a senior doctor from AIIMS. “Delhi’s testing numbers were as low as 5,000 till May. It picked up only recently. It is possible that many Covid-19 patients, who were asymptomatic, continued to spread the disease because they were never tested,” she added.

On Saturday, data shows, 17,533 people were tested for Covid-19 in Delhi — a three times increase compared to last week’s testing number.

Recently, on the instruction of union home minister Amit Shah, the state has also initiated house-to-house surveys to ascertain the spread of the virus and put in record the high-risk and vulnerable segments of the population.

“This exercise should have been started much before. Also, the government ought to have involved citizens in disease control through mass awareness campaigns. People should know the importance of wearing masks properly and continuing with social distancing measures though the lockdown has ended because cases are still coming and in larger numbers,” Dr Rommel Tickoo, associate director in the internal medicine department at Max hospital, Saket.

Many health experts also blame lack of coordination between the civic bodies, state and centre for the crisis in Delhi.