New Delhi: Speaking on the recent surge in COVID-19 cases here, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Sunday attributed the spike to a revised strategy of contact tracing. He also said the number of contacts per positive patients who were being tested had more than doubled now.
"The figure is increasing because we have been doing aggressive contact tracing and testing for 15 days. Earlier, 5–6 people of positive incoming were traced, now it has been increased to above 15, so the number seems to have increased," he said and added that in random testing there has been a decrease in the COVID-19 positive cases.
Jain also said that people should not get careless about wearing masks and that if they could do it for eight-nine months then they can do it for another two-three months, by which time a vaccine is expected to be available.
On the availability of beds in Delhi government-run hospitals, Jain said that a month ago ICU beds were increased by 1,000. "The total number of ICU beds is 2,900, of which 1,200 beds are still available. We had also ordered to reserve 80 percent of the beds in private hospitals, which has been stopped by the High Court. There are 9,500 Covid-dedicated beds which are still available in Delhi and that only 40 per cent of the beds are occupied," he said.
Delhi has been consistently reporting over 5,000 daily cases for the last four to five days.