Covid-19 situation in Delhi better, cases showing downward trend: Jain

The COVID-19 situation in the city is far better now as compared to September and the daily cases have also begun to show a downward trend, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday.

Delhi was at number two but now has come down to the sixth spot in the country in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases, he told reporters.

The minister reiterated that the city government had significantly ramped up testing capacity due to which a rise in COVID-19cases was recorded for a long period in September.

"But now cases have begun to come down and it's sort of stabilised. Also, the positivity rate has fallen to less than 5.5 per cent from 8.5-9 per cent recorded earlier. So the situation is far better now," he said.

The national capital recorded 37 more COVID-19 fatalities on Friday as the toll climbed to 5,438, while 2,920 fresh cases took the tally to over 2.85 lakh, authorities said.

The number of containment zones in Delhi jumped to 2,648 on Friday from 2,615 on Thursday.

On Friday, the positivity rate stood at 5.19 per cent while the recovery rate was over 88 per cent, the bulletin said, adding that the fatality rate was 1.9 per cent.

The Delhi government has significantly ramped up testing in the past few days.

The number of tests conducted and corresponding fresh cases reported, ranged from 24198 (2,312) on September 1 to 61,973 (4,071) on September 19.

On India crossing the one lakh-mark in terms of COVID-19 deaths, Jain said it is a "grim milestone".

Asked about the protests over the Hathras incident, he said, toughest punishment should be meted out to culprits so that "such people have fear of the law and think ten times before taking such a step".

On the BJP-led civic bodies claiming crores of money due from the city government in terms of property tax to them, the AAP leader said "all payments have been done".

"BJP has been ruling the MCD for over a decade. It will get done only if they go out of MCD," Jain said when asked about the mitigation in the level of landfill sites in Delhi.