Over 1,500 new Covid cases for 2nd consecutive day; 9 deaths

New Delhi: Delhi reported over 1,500 coronavirus cases for the second day on the trot on Friday, while nine more people, highest in around two months, succumbed to the disease, the Health Department said.

The 1,534 new infections pushed the tally to 6,54,276, while over 6.36 lakh patients have recovered from the virus.

This is the highest number of cases since December 16 when 1,547 people tested positive for the virus, according to official data.

The city had recorded 1,515 cases on Thursday, 1,254 cases on Wednesday and 1,101 cases on Tuesday — the first time since December 24 that the number of cases crossed the 1,000 mark.

The active cases rose to 6,051 from 5,497 on Thursday. The positivity rate rose to 1.80 per cent from 1.69 per cent a day ago, the health bulletin said.

The positivity rate was 1.52 on Wednesday, 1.31 percent on Tuesday, 1.32 percent on Monday and 1.03 per cent on Sunday.

There were 888 cases on Monday, 823 on Sunday, 813 on Saturday, 716 on Friday, 607 on Thursday, and 536 on Wednesday last week, according to official data.

Nine more people died from the pathogen on Friday, taking the number of fatalities to 10,987.

A total of 85,092 tests, including 53,044 RT-PCR tests, were conducted a day ago, the bulletin said.

The number of people under home isolation rose to 3,312 from 2,871 a day ago. The containment zones rose to 1,307 from 1,076 from on Thursday, it said.

The caseload in Delhi on January 1 had stood at over 6.25 lakh and the total fatalities were 10,557. The number of daily cases had started to come down in February. On February 26, the month's highest daily count of 256 cases was recorded.

Meanwhile, Delhi minister Gopal Rai on Friday took the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital here and appealed to all eligible people to participate in the inoculation drive

"Went to LNJP Hospital to take COVID-19 vaccine. Everyone should get vaccinated according to government guidelines," Rai tweeted.

The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with healthcare workers getting inoculated while vaccination of the frontline workers started from February 2.