Relief as COVID-19 uptick in Delhi shows signs of slowdown

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The rising COVID-19 infections in Delhi and adjoining areas had triggered fears of a possible fourth wave of COVID-19 across the nation, but a slowdown in new cases in the national capital has come as a breather for health administrators in the country.

Union health ministry officials pointed out that the number of daily COVID-19 cases in Delhi have been hovering around 1,000 for the last five days. While nothing could be said definitively, it was unlikely the recent surge will lead to a major COVID-19 wave.

In Delhi, where the number of daily cases had dropped below 50 and the COVID-19 test positivity had plummeted under 1 percent, there had been an uptick in cases, beginning the second week of this month.

The daily infection in the capital crossed the 1,000-mark on April 20 this year after more than two months. The daily test positivity rate, too, has reached about 4.8-5 percent and a similar pattern was observed in some districts adjoining Delhi, in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

COVID-19 data analysts, however, now point out that the Coronavirus cases and positivity rates seem to be plateauing. They also pointed out that hospitalisation rates due to COVID-19 had stayed under 1 percent in Delhi, despite the latest uptick.

To be sure, this trend is also being seen on a national level where the daily COVID-19 cases have stayed between 2,000-3,000 in the last few days.

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But on Monday morning, the new cases in India were 2 percent lower in the 24 hour period, when compared to the previous day.

New virus variant to blame

Insiders at the Indian SARS COV 2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG), a project by the Centre for genomic and epidemiological surveillance on COVID-19, said that the detection of a new variant –BA2.12.1, a derivative variant of Omicron BA.2 -- had been communicated to the Union health ministry last week.

“It is possible that this new variant, coupled with the XE variant, a recombinant variant of Omicron BA.1 and BA.2, was leading to some breakthrough infections,” said an INSACOG scientist.

He added that relaxation in wearing masks, free social gathering and economic activities over the last several weeks, apart from opening of schools, could also be reasons behind the recent rise in cases.

The plateauing Delhi graph

A look at the government data in Delhi suggests that on April 24, the daily new cases were 1,083 and while it is way higher than the daily new infections being reported in the first week of April, the growth in the number of cases is showing signs of a slowdown.

On April 24, the daily test positivity rate, too, for instance, dropped to 4.4 percent, compared to 4.8 percent a day before.

“Indeed, the growth of active cases is slowing down in Delhi and so is the daily average TPR, which is beginning to decrease,” health economist Rijo M John who keeps a close watch on COVID-19 numbers told Moneycontrol.

“I don’t see a worrying situation in Delhi at the moment and I believe the recent uptick is indeed losing momentum.”

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No need to worry yet

Gautam Menon, who teaches Biology and Physics at Ashoka University and specialises in infectious disease modelling, opined that, at the moment, there is no indication of the sort of exponential rise in the number of cases that would signal a fresh wave of cases.

“And, more importantly, we are not seeing hospital and ICU admissions increasing in parallel, indicating that these cases are very largely mild, although we should wait a bit more to be sure of this,” he said.

He, however, also added that with the current levels of COVID-19 vaccination and the hybrid immunity that most Indians possess, the country was likely to stay highly protected against the consequences of any surge in the future.