COVID-19: Delhi overtakes Mumbai in a race nobody wants to win – A surge likely to be temporary
Last updated on February 14th, 2023 at 11:30 am
It wasn’t a surprise when Delhi took over Mumbai wit highest cases on Wednesday. Delhi now has recorded over 70,000 which is ahead from Mumbai by around 800 cases. Out of these more than 40,000 cases have been alone detected in the last two weeks. This is an unfortunate risk of Covid-19 cases – that no one wants to win – in which Delhi and Mumbai are leading the pack.
However, this situation is in most probability temporary. The massive surge in detected cases in Delhi can be attributed to the rise in sample testing in the state recently. This has significantly ramped up since the employment of rapid antigen body test that gives the result in mere 30 minutes. Delhi has reported an increase in testing in last ten days, rising from 5000-7000 per day to approximately 20,000 as on Wednesday.
On the flip side, Mumbai has been testing substantially in low numbers, especially taking into account its large population, which is around 5000 tests per day. But now Mumbai is gearing up with increased testing as well, having ordered more than one lakh rapid antigen testing kits. With increased testing even the Mumbai numbers of detected Covid-19 cases are expected to rise. Mumbai has been long under criticism for limited testing and now with gradual increased testing it is expected to shoot up.
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Delhi is also planning to initiate door-to-door surveillance and testing for early detection and curbing the spread of virus. Mumbai too has been following this protocol, but on a limited scale. ICMR advocates door-to-door testing for early detection of cases even before they develop symptoms, and also asymptomatic cases. This helps in limiting the virus spread. Delhi cases are expected to come under control after seeing a surge with this protocol implementation.
