New Delhi: The daily Covid positivity rate in Delhi on Tuesday saw a sharp decline from 28 per cent a day ago to 22.47 per cent in the most recent health bulletin issued by the health department, which showed that the Capital had recorded 11,684 new Covid cases in a day with a little of 52,000 tests even as 38 more succumbed to the virus.
The national capital had reported 12,527 fresh Covid cases and 24 deaths due to the disease on Monday, while the positivity rate stood at 27.99 per cent. A total of 52,002 tests were conducted to detect the infection on Monday, higher than the 44,762 tests carried out on Sunday.
Significantly, this follows days of fresh cases per day declining in the city even as the daily positivity rate remained over 25 per cent. The decline in new cases had started last week, prompting Health Minister Satyendar Jain to announce that this wave had reached its peak here.
However, even as authorities arrived at this conclusion, the daily positivity rate kept climbing — reaching over 30 per cent — where it remained for two days — before starting its climb down.
Officials in the health department and the health minister have consistently maintained that despite the considerably high positivity rate, there is no need to further increase restrictions in the city than the ones imposed (such as weekend curfew, odd-even for markets, shutting dine-in services, etc.) — citing the relatively low hospitalisation and death rates.
Moreover, even as this month has seen more Covid deaths reported than in the last four months of 2021 combined, Jain has presented data to show that around 75 per cent of these deaths were of those patients who were not vaccinated. He had gone on to reveal that around 90 per cent of the deaths were of patients who had severe comorbidities and the presence of Coronavirus in them was an accidental discovery.
Currently, a total of 2,730 patients are admitted to hospitals, including 139 others, who are on ventilator support. Importantly, the number of Covid patients in hospitals has remained well above the 2,000 mark for more than a week now but once again the health minister has allayed fears noting that over 80 per cent of beds remain vacant.
Delhi currently has 78,112 active cases — down from a day ago, of which over 63,000 are recovering in home isolation.
While the fewer daily cases can be attributed to the fewer tests being conducted per day, on account of a change in guidelines mandated by the Union government, the Delhi government has said that they are still conducting more tests than what was recommended. In fact, several hospitals have also said that they continue to test all patients to avoid an uncontrollable outbreak within their premises.