Delhi hospitals witness lowest Covid admissions in 2 months

Delhi recorded less than 200 hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients on Monday, the lowest in nearly two months, according to government data.

The number of people discharged from hospitals on a daily basis after recovering from COVID-19 has outnumbered the number of those getting admitted since May 14, the data showed.

The decline in hospital admissions can be attributed to the drop in the number of positive cases, officials said.

According to the government data, Delhi witnessed 182 hospital admissions as against 333 discharges on Monday.

On Saturday and Sunday, the hospital admission figures stood at 228 and 237 respectively, while 619 and 425 patients were discharged on those days.

The hospital admissions have dropped below the 1,000-mark since May 16.

The admissions on a single day had risen to 1,993 on April 29, it showed.

Between April 1 and April 5, when the daily cases were below 5,000, the admissions were more than the discharges on a daily basis, according to the data.

On May 14, 1,256 new COVID patients were admitted as against 1,331 discharged, it stated.

The next day, 1,052 patients came to hospitals while 1,379 were discharged.

Between May 16 and May 20, the hospital admissions recorded were 952, 914, 806, 731 and 560 respectively while the discharges in the same period were 1,079, 895, 1,326, 1,090 and 978 respectively.

Since May 22, the hospital admissions have remained below the 500-mark. The hospital admissions recorded on May 22 stood at 482 and the subsequent days figures were 412, 382, 388, 300, 368 and 229 respectively.

Between April 1 and April 5, the hospital admission figures stood at 294, 356, 353, 305 and 406 while the number of patients discharged were 139, 163, 166, 131 and 141 respectively.

On April 11, the daily cases crossed the 10,000-mark for the first time. Last year on November 11 last year, the national capital had recorded 8,593 cases, the highest figure before that date.

There were 953 hospital admissions on April 11 followed by 932 the next day.

On April 13, the hospital admissions crossed the 1,000-mark with 1,218 patients, followed by 1,361, 1812, 1426, 1519 on April 14, 15, 16, 17 respectively.

Dr Suresh Kumar, medical director of LNJP Hospital, the Delhi government's biggest Covid facility, said, "The hospital admissions have shown a huge decline. When the cases were at a peak in April, we were seeing 190-200 admissions on a daily basis while now we see eight, nine or 10 admissions in a day."

Echoing similar sentiments, Dr BL Sherwal, medical director of the Delhi-government run Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, said there are now only one or two admissions and during the time the cases were on a spike, 30-40 patients were admitted daily.

Hospitals had to turn away patients at that time owing to shortage of beds.