New Delhi: As Covid testing showed signs of picking up pace once again, the Capital on Wednesday reported 13,785 fresh Covid-19 cases with the daily positivity rate rising slightly to 23.86 per cent even as 35 more deaths from the virus were added to the toll.
Delhi had logged 11,684 Covid cases and 38 deaths due to the disease on Tuesday, while the positivity rate had declined to 22.47 per cent. The city had reported 12,527 Covid cases and 24 deaths on Monday, while the positivity rate was 27.99 per cent.
A total of over 57,000 tests were conducted on Tuesday, slightly higher than those conducted on Monday. The testing numbers have seen a significant dip since the Centre changed guidelines for Covid testing.
Following Centre's instruction to states and union territories to enhance Covid testing, all districts in Delhi have been given fresh targets according to the active cases there to increase the number of tests being conducted, officials said on Wednesday.
But even as the number of hospitalised patients kept rising marginally to 2,746 (as of Wednesday night), data from authorities showed that more Covid patients were hospitalised this month so far than discharged — suggesting that patients might be having to spend longer times in recovering.
An analysis of the data shows on average, 395 Covid patients were admitted to hospitals on a daily basis between January 1 and January 17, while 243 patients were discharged daily in the period. A total of 4,134 patients were discharged from the city hospitals in the period as against 6,707 patients who were admitted to these facilities.
The data also shows that the number of admissions was more than double the number of discharges between January 1 and January 7.
On the first day of the month, there were 70 admissions as against 28 discharges. The next day, there were 75 admissions while the number of patients discharged was 32.On January 3, the number of discharges recorded was 32 but that of admissions rose to 140.
The number of admissions on January 4, 5, 6 and 7 stood at 222, 340, 385 and 456, while the corresponding figure for discharges on those days was 77, 71, 104 and 161.
The hospital admissions crossed the 100 mark on January 3 and breached the 200 mark the next day. It crossed the 300 mark on January 5 and the 400 mark two days later. It breached the 500 mark on January 10.
In the said period, Delhi recorded the highest number of 544 hospital admissions on January 12 and the lowest on January 1 at 70.