8,521 new cases, highest single-day spike in 2021

New Delhi: Delhi recorded 8,521 fresh COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest single-day surge since November 11 last year, while 39 more people died due to the infection, taking the death toll to 11,196, according to the city health department.

The highest single-day spike in Delhi till date — 8,593 cases — was reported on November 11 in 2020, while on November 19, the city had recorded 131 COVID-19 deaths, the highest single-day fatality count till date.

On Friday, the daily infection tally inched almost close to that record spike figure, indicating a much faster rate of spread of the infection. This is also the first time that over 8,000 cases have been recorded in a day this year.

The positivity rate reduced slightly to 7.79 per cent on Friday from 8.1 per cent a day before, according to the health department. The national capital has seen a massive spike in cases in the last few weeks.

According to the department's latest bulletin, a record 1,09,398 tests were conducted on Thursday, including 70,403 RT-PCR tests and 38,995 rapid antigen tests.

The number of cumulative cases on Friday stood at 7,06,526. Over 6.68 lakh patients have recovered from the virus, the bulletin said.

It said that 39 more people died due to the disease, taking the toll to 11,196.

The number of active cases rose to 26,631 from 23,181 a day before.

The number of people under home isolation increased to 13,188 from 11,367 on Thursday while the number of containment zones mounted to 4,768 from 4,226 a day before, the bulletin said.

Meanwhile, senior AAP leader and national spokesperson for the party, Atishi said that it was a matter of pride that the Prime Minister was recommending other states to follow in the footsteps of the Delhi government in containing the fresh surge of Covid-19 cases — especially in asking them to follow home isolation and micro-containment — two unique pandemic response measures first started in the Capital.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday met the head of the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the wake of 37 of its doctors testing positive for COVID-19 since the recent surge in coronavirus cases, officials said.