Delhi Now India's Pandemic Epicentre

Having topped Mumbai in ‘viral load’, city building facilities on a war footing. Forces to run big Covid-19 fighting arenas as Centre & Delhi govt bicker over credit.

- Gulam Jeelani

On late Wednesday evening, the AAP government’s health bulletin underscored a grim milestone: the total coronavirus cases in Delhi had breached the 70,000-mark. The city overtook Mumbai and became India’s new pandemic epicentre.

On Tuesday, Delhi had reported 3,947 cases — the steepest single-day spike for any city or state in the country.

For that one day, the city fared worse than even some of the global hotspots like Brazil’s Sao Paulo (2,483), Chile’s Santiago (2,469) and Peru’s Lima (1,906).

Mumbai’s positivity rate (confirmed cases among tests conducted) was, however, 23.2%, which is higher than Delhi’s 16.7 %. Delhi has seen fewer deaths (2,429) than Mumbai (4,060).

Delhi has seen 3,000 plus daily cases on all days, except one (2,909 on June 22), since June 19.

With 3,390 new cases and 64 deaths on Thursday, total infections in Delhi reached 73,780 including 2,429 deaths.

Delhi’s share in the country’s cases has increased from 10% on May 25 to 15.6 % Thursday.

During the same one-month period, the Capital’s deaths in total fatalities of the country increased from 7% on May 25 to 16.3%.

By the AAP government’s own admission, at the present doubling rate (about 13 days), Delhi will have 1,00,000 cases by June-end and 5,50,000 by July-end.

BRACING FOR IMPACT

With the surging case overload, the focus of the Centre and the Delhi government has now shifted to building big Covid care centres. Make-shift hospitals in hotels, banquet halls and railway coaches are also being set up.