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Delhi

10-day average of fatality rate below 1% a good sign, says Health Min Jain

New Delhi: Reacting to the sudden jump in daily COVID-19 deaths in the city, reported on Saturday, Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Sunday said that the death figures will see a decline in the coming days and that the 10-day-average of deaths stands at less than 1 per cent as of now. On Sunday, the Delhi government added 42 deaths from the virus to its toll.

"Less than one percent fatality rate is considered a good sign because at one of time Delhi had a four percent fatality rate," Jain said, adding that the death rate is usually seen as an average of ten days or weekly and not of a single day as it takes into account those who were infected a week or ten days ago.

When cases had peaked in June and death cases had gone up Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had directed a team of government officials to look into the matter and visit hospitals and consult doctors in order to bring down the death figures.

Jain said that the government officials had once again recently visited the hospitals and the reports have been "satisfactory" with few minor problems which have been fixed.

The health minister also said that at present the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases in Delhi is at 50 days. "In the last few days Delhi hospitals have seen a decline in occupancy of beds which now stands at 6,840 which is a lot less compared to a couple of days ago," he said.

Meanwhile, explaining the sudden surge in daily deaths, Medical Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, BL Sherwal said, "The number of deaths being reported in excess of 30 in the past few days or 46 yesterday, can be attributed to two major reasons — most of the patients who are dying are in 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s, and the victims are mostly those who had co-morbidities," he said. RGSSH is a dedicated COVID-19 facility under the Delhi government which reported four deaths on Saturday.

"Also, a large number of patients coming to Delhi are from neighbouring cities or states and are being brought in a very sick condition, so again the survival rate is low," Sherwal said when asked why death cases are rising when daily cases are now falling.

Moreover, Giridhar Babu of the Public Health Foundation of India said there is always a "lag time" in reporting deaths.

"Generally 14-17 days after a surge in cases, one will see a high number of deaths being reported. The surge in cases in Delhi could have started two weeks earlier so because of that surge, whatever the hospitalisation-related complications happened are being seen now. If the surge in cases continues, you will have to observe the number of deaths also," he said.

with agency inputs

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