Highest daily spike for 2nd day in row

New Delhi: The national Capital on Thursday recorded over 5,700 fresh COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day spike till date, even as the Delhi government cited its new strategy involving aggressive contact tracing and testing as one of the reasons for a sudden surge in the number of infections in the city.

On Thursday, the 5,739 fresh cases came out of the 60,124 tests conducted the previous day. The positivity rate also jumped to 9.55 on Thursday as the infection tally in the city mounted to over 3.75 lakh. The active cases tally on Thursday rose to 30,952 from 29,378 the

previous day.

Amid the festive season and rising pollution levels, this is the second consecutive day when over 5,000 cases have been reported in a day in the city.

Twenty-seven new fatalities were recorded, pushing the death toll in the national capital to 6,423, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi Health Department.

The number of patients under home isolation also jumped to over 18,000 on Thursday. However, there are still 9,895 vacant COVID-19 beds in Delhi. A total of 5,854 COVID-19 patients are in hospitals here now. The number of containment zones in the city also continued to increase, with Thursday's bulletin pegging the number at 3,113.