3rd serosurvey to be 'ward-wise', says Jain as city reports 2,313 new cases
New Delhi: Delhi's third round of serological survey began on Tuesday, this time at a "micro-level", as put by Health Minister Satyendar Jain, who said that this round of the survey would be conducted over seven days covering all 272 municipal wards in Delhi.
The Capital on Tuesday reported 2,312 new COVID-19 cases, keeping with the recent trend in increasing daily cases, taking the total tally of cases here to 1,77,060. The Delhi government's official health bulletin showed that 18 deaths were added to the toll, which climbed to 4,462.
Amid the increase in cases, Jain spoke to reporters about the third round of serosurvey, saying the sample size this time will be around 17,000. "The fresh round of sero-survey began today. This time we will be doing it ward-wise, so all 272 municipal wards of Delhi will be covered, plus two Assembly areas. Sampling will be done for a week. After that, results should come in 7-10 days," Jain said.
Delhi's active cases, patients under home isolation and hospitalised patients have all increased in the last few weeks as the cases rose but the Delhi government has allayed any fears, insisting that they are prepared to deal with a worsening situation and that most hospitalised patients were from outside Delhi.
According to Tuesday's bulletin, the number of vacant COVID-19 beds in the city went below 10,000 for the first time in months, however, it still showed over 9,900 vacant hospital beds for Coronavirus patients. Moreover, active cases now stand at 15,870, of which 8,119 are under home isolation.
The last serosurvey for Delhi showed a prevalence rate of 29.1 per cent in the city, with the highest prevalence rate for people aged below 18 years of age, as per the results. The previous surveys were done district-wise. But this time, it is being done ward-wise to analyse the COVID-19 situation in the city at a "micro-level", the Delhi health minister said.
Meanwhile, authorities in Delhi are now working towards ramping up testing numbers and looking at maximising RT-PCR tests. Tuesday's numbers showed that a total of 24,198 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, of which 7,198 were RT-PCR tests and 17,000 were rapid antigen tests. Delhi aims to increase daily testing to 40,000.
"The rise, rather than the exponential rise is not there. So, people are taking safety precautions it seems. But, we cannot afford to be complacent and lower our guard," Jain had said on August 20 after the first signs of a spurt in cases started showing once again.
The national Capital had seen a spurt in daily cases in the last several days and a steady rise in active cases since August 5. On Sunday, Delhi had recorded 2,024 fresh cases, the highest single-day spike in the city in August. It was also the highest spurt in Delhi in nearly 50 days.
Jain had on July 22 announced that after analysing the results of the June-July survey, it was decided that such exercise would be done every month to formulate better policies for tackling COVID-19 situation in the national Capital.
