City sees over 3K new cases for third straight day; 55,891 tests conducted

New Delhi: The national Capital's cumulative COVID-19 caseload rose to 3.21 lakh on Thursday with authorities reporting 3,483 new cases, while 26 fatalities pushed the total number of deaths to 5,924.

This is the third consecutive day that the city reported more than 3,000 new cases. It had registered 3,324 cases on Wednesday and 3,036 instances of the viral infection on Tuesday. Delhi reported 26 deaths on Thursday — the lowest since September 25, when 24 people died of the infection. The fatality count was 44 on Wednesday, 45 on Tuesday, 40 on Monday, 29 on Sunday and 48 on Saturday.

Of the total cases reported in Delhi so far, 2,92,502 have either recovered, been discharged or migrated out.

As many as 55,891 tests were conducted to detect COVID-19 infection on Wednesday, of which 13,985 were RT-PCR tests and 41,906 rapid antigen tests. A total of 38,27,164 tests have been conducted in the national capital so far — 2.01 lakh tests per million population.

The case positivity rate during the last 24 hours was 6.23 per cent while the cumulative positivity rate was 8.38 per cent. The average death rate for the last 10 days stands at 1.34 per cent.

The number of active cases in the city on Thursday was 22,605, of which 12,810 are under home isolation. Of the 16,109 hospital beds in the city, 11,000 are unoccupied.

The number of COVID-19 containment zones in the city stood at 2,727.

Earlier in the day, AIIMS conducted a webinar on the crisis being faced by old age homes in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and what could be done to ease the situation. The discussion also talked about what non-Covid elderly patients could do during a crisis situation as many hospitals in the national Capital have been turned into Covid dedicated ones.

According to the data by AIIMS, thousands of old age homes are struggling due to the unavailability of medical and basic facilities. Numerous NGOs said that despite helping the old age homes, the shortage still persists as there are hardly any funds. "Due to the fear of the pandemic people have stopped coming to the old age home and contributing funds," a senior citizen from an old age home is shown saying through a video.

Meanwhile, speaking on the issue of whether it is safe for non covid elderly patients to visit OPD, Dr. Meenal senior resident at the hospital said, "If you can go to a nearby local hospital or clinic for check up please go there instead of getting admitted to major hospitals. If the situation is serious and then come to the hospital if your local doctor recommends."

The doctor also spoke about the Covid rules and regulations followed by the hospitals. The webinar was held by Department of Geriatric Medicine AIIMS.