 "Arvind Kejriwal")
Delhi recorded 2,706 fresh COVID-19 cases on Sunday with a positivity rate below 4 per cent, even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the third wave of the pandemic in the national capital seems to be weakening.
The positivity rate on Thursday, Friday and Saturday had stood at 4.96 per cent, 4.78 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively.
Over 73,000 tests were conducted on the previous day, while the positivity rate on Sunday was recorded at 3.68 per cent.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain in a tweet, also asserted that "Delhi is emerging victorious in this war against the virus".
These relatively low number of fresh cases came out of 73,536 tests conducted the previous day, including 32,023 RT-PCR tests, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.
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Kejriwal on Sunday tweeted, "I am glad that the third wave also seems to be getting weak. Delhi fought a v difficult war against corona."
Sixty-nine fatalities were recorded, pushing the toll in the national capital to 9,643, while the positivity rate dropped to 3.68 per cent, the bulletin said.
The active cases tally on Sunday dropped to 24,693 from 26,678, the previous day.
The bulletin said that the total number of cases has climbed to 5,92,250, while the recovery rate stood at over 94 per cent.
On October 19, Delhi had recorded 2,154 fresh cases, so a big margin of fall in number of incidences along with a sharp drop in positivity rate has come after a long time.
The number of containment zones in Delhi jumped to 6,173 on Sunday from 6,045 on Friday.
The highest single-day spike till date -- 8,593 cases -- was reported on November 11.
Jain on Friday had said if the COVID-19 positivity rate in the national capital stayed below 4 per cent for five consecutive days, it would indicate that the city has successfully combated the pandemic.
The recent spike in cases had come during festive season and rising pollution level. While Durga Puja celebrations ended on October 25, Diwali fell on November 14 and Chhath was observed on November 20-21.
The National Centre for Disease Control in a report drafted recently had warned that Delhi needs to be prepared for about 15,000 fresh cases of COVID-19 per day taking into account the upcoming winter season-related respiratory problems, large influx of patients from outside and festive gatherings.
According to the Sunday bulletin, out of the total number of 18,814 beds in COVID hospitals, 12,669 are vacant.
It said that 574 beds in COVID care centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned by Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights.
The Delhi government had significantly ramped up testing in the past few weeks, with the count on several times crossing the 60,000-mark.
On Saturday, 35,023 RT-PCR tests and 41,513 rapid antigen tests were conducted, adding to 73,536, the bulletin said.
On Thursday and Friday, over 80,000tests were conducted.
The number of tests done per million as on Saturday was over 3.54 lakh while the total number of tests stood at over 67 lakh.
The bulletin said that 5,57,914 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far.
The number of people in home isolation dropped to 15,276 on Sunday from 16,231 the previous day.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
