63% Delhi residents don’t approve removal of COVID restrictions till TPR rate reaches 5%

January 21, 2022, New Delhi: In light of the new variant Omicron-led daily COVID cases amidst the 3rd wave of the pandemic, the Government of Delhi imposed a series of restrictions to curb the spread within the state. New Delhi reported on Thursday 12,306 COVID cases from 57,920 tests conducted within the country's capital, and there were 43 related deaths. According to the Delhi State Health Bulletin, the Test Positivity Rate in the state has shown a gradual decline at 21.5%, which had peaked on January 14th at 30.64%. Hospital beds for COVID also continue to remain vacant, with 82.48% vacant out of the total 15,603 beds for COVID-19 patients.

The State Government maintains that while current restrictions have been effective to curb COVID cases, cases have now reduced and hospitalisations have reduced considerably. Further, businesses continue to get impacted. The traders and shopkeepers recently urged the government to remove the odd-even rules and allow shops to function on weekends as they remain unable to recovered losses incurred over the last 2 years. Per media reports, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal proposed to end the weekend curfew in the national capital, stop the odd-even rule in markets and malls and allow private officed to call 50% of their staff. However, the proposal has been rejected by the Lieutenant Governor.

LocalCircles has conducted a survey to understand if this is the right time to remove the restrictions and if not when will it be. The survey received 7,598 responses from residents across all districts of Delhi. 66% of the respondents were men while 34% were women.

63% Delhi residents will be ok with removal of COVID restrictions (night and weekend curfews, odd even shops opening, etc.) once test positivity rate falls to 5%

The question in the survey asked citizens, “What should be the criteria to remove current COVID-related restrictions (weekend and night curfew, market odd-even shops, etc.) imposed in Delhi?” In response, 11% said the “Test Positivity Rate should fall to 20% minimum”, 26% said it should fall to “10% minimum”, another 26% said it should be “5% minimum”, 21% said “2% minimum”, and 5% said “1% minimum”. Only 5% of residents of Delhi said, “Just remove all the restrictions right now without delay”. 6% did not have an opinion. The findings indicate that 63% of Delhi residents will be ok with the removal of COVID restrictions, (including night and weekend curfews, odd-even shops opening, etc.) once the Test Positivity Rate falls to 5%. This question in the survey received 7,598 responses.

To summarise, majority residents of Delhi are currently not ok with removal of restrictions in Delhi and will not be ok even if the TPR reaches 10%. It is only it 5% TPR that 63% residents of Delhi will support the removal of restrictions.

LocalCircles will share the findings of this survey with the Chief Minister, the Office of Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and the Chief Secretary so as they finalise the way forward on lockdown in Delhi, this collective public feedback is taken into account.