By Michelle Alles
New Delhi (CWBN)_ On Tuesday, the city reported 3,579 new cases of COVID-19. So far, the infection has affected over 336,000 people and killed 6,081, with 23,922 active virus cases, the highest in 25 days.
Furthermore, the proportion of samples that return positive among total tested has also been on the rise. Delhi‘s current average positivity rate is 6.1% over the last seven days, compared to 5.5% during the previous week.
On average, 13,900 RT PCR tests were conducted everyday during the last seven days, as compared to 10,471 the previous week. The RT-PCR tests accounted for about 26.5% of the total tests that were done during the last seven days.
An alternative, the government can consider is using a rapid antigen test, which is cheap, easy to deploy in clinics and dispensaries, and gives results within 15 minutes. However, the rapid antigen tests are much more likely to throw up false negative reports for people who might actually have the infection.
