Covid Infection Rate Highest in Delhi. Mass Exodus Begins

The report has given individual experiences of a number of citizens who are leaving Delhi to go to safer places where the impact of coronavirus is not quite lethal.

By Rakesh Raman

According to a research report “Silent exodus from Delhi,” a mass exodus from India’s capital New Delhi is under way because coronavirus deaths are increasing rapidly in the city.

Although Delhi is at No. 3 after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in the list of worst-affected Indian states, the national capital has the most number of infections as percentage of population.

As of July 11, Maharashtra with a population of 120 million (12 crore) has 230,000 Covid cases and Tamil Nadu has 126,000 cases in a population of 80 million (8 crore). But Delhi with an official population of just 20 million (2 crore) has 110,000 cases.

In other words, 0.19% people in Maharashtra and 0.15% people in Tamil Nadu are infected. But the Covid devastation is maximum in Delhi with 0.55% people infected.

While Delhi Government headed by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is telling blatant lies about the status of the contagion, Covid infection is killing a large number of people in Delhi.

The new Frontline report reveals that the first wave of migrants who left for their homes on foot were daily wagers who did not belong to the city. But the current wave of reverse migration includes families that had lived in Delhi for decades.

According to the report, these outgoing residents survived the lockdown in Delhi and hoped that the situation would improve soon. But on July 6, when the number of positive cases in Delhi crossed 100,000, no one was willing to believe the government’s claim on the situation being under control any more.

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The report adds that the collapse of the public health system, with patients being turned away from hospitals, and economic problems, pushed families to take the extreme step of moving back to where they had come from.

Even though the government used terms such as “community transmission” with caution, according to the report, the public could see that Covid-19 cases were surging through communities in the national capital.

The report has given individual experiences of a number of citizens who are leaving Delhi to go to safer places where the impact of coronavirus is not quite lethal.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications and research reports on different subjects. These publications include the “Covid Health Bulletin” that covers global coronavirus news and views.