Daily positivity rate jumps to 12.69%

New Delhi: As Delhi on Sunday reported over 5,000 new COVID-19 cases for the fifth straight day, an analysis of data put out by the Delhi government showed that the number of patients under home isolation had also jumped by over 5,800 in the last 10 days even as crowding due to festivities, rise in pollution and other factors have led to a massive surge in daily cases lately.

The count of home quarantined cases on October 19 was 14,164 which fell marginally on October 20 to 14,046. However, since then, these cases showed an upward trend, and on October 31 the figures stood at 20,093, according to official data.

In this period, the number of containment zones has also increased from 2,724 on October 21 to 3,274 on October 31. Delhi recorded 5,062 fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the infection tally to over 3.86 lakh, even as the positivity rate jumped to nearly 11.5 per cent.

The highest single-day spike to date - 5,891 cases - was recorded on Friday. After showing a gradual decline since September 22, except for two days, the number of patients under home quarantine had again risen on October 1, the count being 15,899.

However, from October 2-13 the cases of home isolation gradually dipped, except on two days when it registered a minimal rise. On October 2, the count was 15,852 which came down to 12,176 on October 13, as per the official data.

Sunday's health bulletin showed that the Capital had added 51 deaths to the toll from the virus, which climbed to 6,562 with the active caseload now at 34,173. Of these active patients, 20,732 are recovering under home isolation.

Significantly, the daily positivity rate here on Sunday jumped to 12.69 per cent after the new case came out of the 44,623 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, of which 14,347 were RT-PCR tests and the rest were rapid antigen tests.