Thread by @jamewils

Delhi moving into a red zone: Every third person tested is COVID-19 positive

Trends suggest that soon every second person who would be tested would be positive for COVID-19.

nationalheraldindia.com/india/delhi-mo…

On June 13, it took only 2.71 teststo find one Coronavirus positive case. This means there is at least 37% positivity in Delhi, i.e. more than one-third of the people who are being tested are COVID-19 positive.

This increase in positivity is a worrying trend. When we compute the positivity for a month (May 14 to June 13), it took 5.36 cases to find one positive case and the cumulative figure from when the cases began in Delhi, it is 7.3.

An increase in positivity means that fewer number of tests are required to find one COVID-19 positive case. It is inversely proportional.

See how these numbers are changing dramatically for Delhi within a month!

If we were to look at the numbers for the last three days (June 11, 12, 13), it is quite perturbing. On June 11, it took 2.86 tests to find one COVID-19 positive case, on June 12, it became 2.78 tests and on June 13, 2.71 tests.

“What is worrisome is that Delhi’s COVID-19 trajectory is only rising. By the end of June, Delhi is expected to touch 90,000 COVID-19 cases. The present trend shows that the day when every second person tested will be COVID-19 positive is not far away,”

This is my response 👆

The worrying trend began to show from as far as April. On April 2, it took 10.4 COVID-19 tests to find a positive case.

Delhi’s case positivity was already higher than the national average of 27.2 tests/case on same day.

Delhi should have been worried back then too.

By then Delhi was already in the stage of community transmission, according to Dr Jayaprakash Muliyil, an epidemiologist and former principal of the Vellore-based Christian Medical College.

"We can conduct up to 2,200 COVID-19 tests per day in Delhi, and we are running to full capacity. We get swabs from Delhi and nearby states. We have already informed the Delhi government than we can ramp up the testing numbers,” said Dr Arvind Lal of Dr Lal Path Labs.

Even by conservative standards, if we were to consider both government and private labs were able to test only 200 COVID-19 samples a day, Delhi has the capability to conduct at least 8,200 tests a day. The reality will be a much higher number.

On June 13, Delhi conducted 5,776 tests; on an average, the state has been testing only 5,195 cases this week. ICMR has stated that 41 labs (18 government labs and 23 private labs) in Delhi can test for the novel Coronavirus. 

This is the time to expand your testing..but!

We only have to look towards Chhattisgarh, a Hindi heartland state. It was expected to do poorly in this pandemic, but has done extremely well.

Some will say look at the density of population of Delhi, but they forget that it is easy to ramp up resources in a city State!

Moreover, the money, infrastructure and health workers at disposal of a city State can never be dreamed by a Bimaru State, which born out of Madhya Pradesh.

This is the silent revolution happening in the Hindi heartland where bigotry, temples and statues dominate than HDI

Chattisgarh is the real story to be discussed on our national channels but they love to ignore it.

How dare you invest on HDI when everyone else is investing on communal divide and hatred!

Cowboys will discuss about UP where no dare to question data fearing retribution!

As of June 12, Chhattisgarh has conducted 1,03,740 tests of which 1,429 are positive cases.

Here they takes 72.6 tests to find one COVID-19 positive case.

Commendably, there have been only 6 COVID-19 deaths so far in the state, which makes the mortality rate of the state 0.4%.

Meanwhile in Delhi, 2,83,239 COVID-19 tests have been conducted as of June 13. Of these, 38,958 are the confirmed COVID-19 positive cases & 1,271 people have died so far.

The mortality rate in Delhi is quite high at 3.3%, which is 8.25 times higher than that of Chhattisgarh.

What did Chhattisgarh do differently? The government stepped it, built make-shift quarantine centres and took over private hospitals.

Yep, this was when Kejriwal was worried about Shaheen Bagh protests and blaming the Tablighis!

"When the movement of people to our state had started, we had more than one lakh people in public COVID-19 Care Centres." @TS_SinghDeo explained.

No other State had this much people under institutional quarantine AFAIK

The no. of migrant workers estimated to reach Chhattisgarh was 2.5 to 3 lakh in May.

But, they made quarantine arrangements for about 5.5 lakh people.

So far, about 3.25 lakh people have come back until now and currently 1.30 lakh people are in public quarantine.

"So, of the 1,400 cases reported so far, we have not been able to identify the origin of the virus in only 50 people. But, it is a cause of worry because they have no travel history."

Chattisgarh's @TS_SinghDeo is candid, there is no chest thumbing or high voltage PR. Facts only

Chhattisgarh was the first state to take over private hospitals. The state has already identified 922 ventilators (public and private) – 300 for babies and 622 for adults. 

If u want to understand the enormity of this, look at its mother State, Madhya Pradesh, don't get shocked!

Delhi can be compared to Kerala too. On April 2, Kerala, which has a population of 3.5 crore, had done 8,421 tests and 295 had tested positive.

On the same date, Delhi had conducted 3,038 tests and there were 293 COVID-19 positive cases.

Even with fewer tests, an equal number of people had tested positive in Delhi on the same date.

By June 12, Kerala had done 1,40,457 tests, of which 2,322 tested positive. Even with the influx of people from outside the state, it takes 60.5 tests to find one positive case.

Nineteen people have died of COVID-19 in the southernmost state and the mortality rate of Kerala is 0.8%. The national capital has registered 1,271 deaths, and this makes the capital’s mortality rate almost four times that of Kerala’s.

Well done @ashlinpmathew, for this story 👍

I know this is not a story either for North Korean media or international media, because if a State in Hindi heartland is heavily investing in HDI is antithetical to the narrative of Mandir and Masjid!

So they will ignore these stories. Even @INCIndia is not telling their story!