Out of the eleven districts of the national capital, the North-West district recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases this month, according to a recent Delhi government data. The North-West district, with over 36 lakh population and area of 440 square km, recorded 7,316 coronavirus cases from December 1 to 19, the highest among all the districts in the national capital. South-West and West districts recorded 6,723 and 5,923 coronavirus cases in 19 days, respectively.
The data was submitted to the Delhi High Court on Wednesday on a petition seeking to ramp up of testing. There is, however, an uneven spread of cases in the districts. The city's most densely populated North-East district logged only 1,483 cases - lowest among all the districts.
Suneela Garg, the advisor to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said that there is diversity among all the districts due to different population density, socio-economic profile and religious distribution.
"The total number of cases in an area is determined by the type of population, its density, literacy status and age group of the population. North-West district is a partial slum and partially urban area, which explains the high number of coronavirus cases," Garg said.
North-West District Magistrate Cheshta Yadav and South-West District Magistrate Rahul Singh were reached out for comments through calls and messages but no response was received till the filing of this report.
Meanwhile, South-East district recorded 3,782 cases, followed by 3,595 by East district, 3,379 by South district, 3,321 by Shahdara district, 3,276 by New Delhi district, 2,715 by Central district and 2,563 by Northern district. Besides this, six of 11 districts reported positivity rate, which is the percentage of people who test positive out of all of the tests done, higher than the city's average of 3.25 per cent during the 19 days under review. The data show that the highest average positivity rate was reported by North-West district at 4.75 per cent, followed by South-West district at 4 per cent and New Delhi district at 3.51 per cent.
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"The government of Delhi is enhancing contact tracings and creating more containment zones in the districts where the positive rate is more. In the DDMA meeting of December 21, it was decided that the government will follow 'Representative Testing', focusing more on the districts and pockets where the positivity rate is more," the Delhi government said in a statement.
Notably, the third wave of the coronavirus has completely ebbed in the national capital as the cases and deaths have come down drastically. The city has been recording less than 1,000 cases for the last three days.
Source: IANS