Covid-19 cases in the national capital have seen an upward trend in the past three days. While fresh cases registered a 40% increase on Thursday, with 176 infections, the test positivity rate also rose to 1.68 per cent from 1.12 per cent the previous day.
Positivity rate is the proportion of samples that return positive, which is indicative of the spread of the infection.
With lower number of cases and almost all restrictions removed, officials say that fewer people turn up to get tested. When the number of tests are low, the positivity rate can rise.
The test positivity rate has remained above 1% over the last four days, up from 0.57% recorded on the first day of the month. As per an Indian Express report, officials said that lifting of restrictions such as the need for a negative RT-PCR test for domestic travel has also led to a drop in the number of tests conducted and consequently the increasing positivity rate.
The number of tests has remained very low over the last three days, averaging 9,328 tests a day. In comparison, Delhi state health bulletin shows 23,431 tests were conducted on average daily during the last seven days of March.
A Delhi government official said that no sample collection points have been shut, rather people don’t come to centres for testing.
“As for samples we collect from the community and transit points like railway stations and ISBTs, people refuse to get tested since the fear of the infection has gone down,” the official was quoted by the Indian Express as saying. He added that a major chunk of tests is happening at hospitals as patients, especially those who have to undergo surgery, with respiratory symptoms are tested for Covid-19.
City doctors said that while they did not see any Covid-19 patients the previous week, they have started seeing one or two cases this week. “All patients just had a sore throat, cough, fever, etc and had they not been tested, it could pass off as a regular cold. People are reluctant to get tested now, but we need to keep an eye on tests to spot if there is a surge,” a doctor from a private hospital told Indian Express.
India saw a single day rise of 1,109 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,30,33,067, while the active cases have further declined to 11,492 , according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.
The active cases comprised 0.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent, the health ministry said.
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