At 29, more Covid deaths reported in a week than in the last 4 months

New Delhi: As the Delhi government on Friday issued the latest Covid health bulletin, it was revealed that with the onset of the third wave of the pandemic, the Capital had recorded 29 deaths in the first week of this year — more than the number of deaths reported in the four months before it combined. According to official figures, the city had reported five deaths from the virus in September (2021), four in October, seven in November and nine in December.

The dramatic rise in the death toll came even as experts here called for the authorities to declare which variant of the virus these deceased patients had been infected with. According to the latest figures, the number of active cases in the city is now nearly 40,000 and even as efforts are made to significantly increase testing, the daily positivity rate shot up to 17.73 per cent.

But despite the alarmingly quick rise in Covid deaths along with that of hospitalisations due to the virus, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Friday that Delhi had reported six times lower hospital admissions due to the coronavirus this time as compared to the first wave of the pandemic.

On the World Health Organization (WHO) describing the Omicron variant of the virus as "not mild", Jain said only experts will be able to tell if it is mild or not. "I can give you the data that I have. Delhi has 31,498 active Covid cases and only 1,091 hospital beds are occupied. When we had an equal number of cases the last time, around 7,000 beds were occupied," he added.

"A total of 15,000 cases a day would have meant 3,000 to 4,000 hospital admissions had this wave been driven by the Delta variant. Hospital admissions now are not even 10 per cent of it (the number of daily cases). So, there is a huge

difference and we have to accept it," he said, adding, "Some

health workers, including doctors, have tested positive, but in very small numbers".

But even as the Delhi Corona app showed that as of 11 pm on Friday, over 1,300 oxygen beds were occupied and 87 ventilator beds taken, more hospitals started reporting doctors getting infected and isolating — adding to the shortage of staff across hospitals. Hundreds of doctors across hospitals like LNJP, Safdarjung, Hindu Rao, Sir Ganga Ram, RML, Rajeev Gandhi Super Speciality hospitals have tested positive in the last week.

And even as the authorities maintain that they have enough resources to deal with this wave of the pandemic, the Delhi health department, in an attempt to pre-empt such a scenario, has cancelled all leave of all hospital workers.

The huge spike in fresh cases in the span of last several days here is being recorded amid a significant jump in cases of the new Omicron variant of Covid in Delhi but significantly, according to official data no Omicron patient has so

far died in the city and none of them are even requiring oxygen support.