New Delhi: The Capital on Sunday reported one more death from Covid-19 even as the government here said that 107 new cases had been detected in the last 24 hours, according to the health bulletin issued on Sunday
evening. This is the most number of daily cases reported in Delhi since June 27 even as the daily positivity rate here rose to the highest it has been since the second wave waned off — 0.17 per cent.
The number of active cases in Delhi has also breached the 500-mark for the first time in over four months. The city currently has 540 active cases, including 225 patients isolated at home. The national Capital had 513 active cases on August 15. The number of containment zones in the city stands at 157, up from 153 on Saturday, the bulletin said.
Even as authorities try their best to ramp up testing — especially in crowded public spaces such as Metro stations and markets, the Delhi government reported around 61,900 tests being conducted on Saturday. The city, at the peak of the pandemic, was conducting close to 1 lakh tests daily.
A total of 61,905 Covid tests, including 57,435 RT-PCR tests, were conducted in the city a day ago, the bulletin stated.
Significantly, amid this scenario, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority here is expected to meet this week to discuss the rise in Covid figures in addition to the rise in Omicron cases here.
On June 27, Delhi had logged 259 coronavirus cases and four deaths, according to the government data. The city logged 86 new cases on Saturday and 69 on Friday with a positivity rate of 0.13 per cent and 0.12 per cent, respectively.
The rise in daily cases comes amid an Omicron scare in Delhi as the total number of patients found infected with the latest variant of the coronavirus jumped by 12 on Friday to reach 22. The number of Covid cases recorded in Delhi so far has reached 14,42,197. Over 14.16 lakh patients have recovered from the disease. The death toll due to the coronavirus infection in Delhi stands at 25,101.
Three deaths due to COVID-19 have been recorded in December so far in Delhi. Seven deaths were reported in November, four in October and five in September.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had on Thursday said many international travellers are being tested Covid positive upon arrival at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said the city government is ready to tackle the Omicron variant.
He said Delhi was unlikely to face another wave of infections since according to the serosurvey conducted by the Delhi government, 96 per cent of the state population was found to have antibodies and a majority of them were vaccinated.
Amid the jump in cases of Omicron variant in Delhi, doctors said people should avoid all gatherings and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, else the pandemic situation may worsen given the highly transmissible nature of this variant of coronavirus.
Health experts and doctors treating Covid patients at leading government and private facilities in the city have said that a "sense of complacency" has again crept in among a large section of citizens despite witnessing the "horrors of the second wave" of Covid infections earlier this year.