Delhi Covid surge mainly affected young: AIIMS director

The Covid surge in Delhi has mainly affected the younger population with most of the patients reporting “relatively milder symptoms”, according to AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria.

There is a need to remain vigilant, he said, because the infection can “spread to the elderly” and trigger “serious symptoms”, which would once again put healthcare resources under strain.

"There is an increase in the number of patients getting admitted but it's not that we are running out of beds yet. As the cases go up, we will reach a situation where more and more patients will get admitted and that is the cause of concern," Guleria said.

However, Dr Guleria ruled out the necessity of imposing another lockdown in the metro and called for designating more containment zones to contain the spread of the infection.

In the past few weeks, deaths due to Covid-19 have also increased. On Wednesday, the capital recorded 11 deaths due to infection in the past 24 hours. Also, 1,819 new cases were reported with a positivity rate of 2.71%.

Delhi is now in the top 10 states in India in the Covid tally.

The city recorded 992 cases on Tuesday, 1,904 cases on Monday and 1,881 cases on Sunday. It saw 1,558 cases on Saturday, 1,534 cases on Friday, 1,515 cases on Thursday, 1,254 cases on Wednesday and 1,101 cases last Tuesday, when it crossed the 1,000-mark for the first time since December 24.

The positivity rate was 2.7% on Tuesday, 2.77% on Monday, 2.35% on Sunday, 1.7% on Saturday, 1.8% on Friday, and 1.69% on Thursday.