500 extra ICU beds for Covid patients added across private hospitals: Jain

New Delhi: Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday said over 500 extra ICU beds are now available for COVID-19 patients after an order was issued recently to several private hospitals to earmark designated percentage of those beds for the purpose.

Last week an order was issued that 80 per cent ICU beds in 33 private hospitals here are to be reserved for COVID-19 patients, Jain had earlier said.

"As per the Corona app, over 500 extra ICU beds are now available for COVID-19 patients," he told reporters on Friday.

According to the Thursday bulletin, the positivity rate stood at 7.38 per cent and the death rate stood at 0.68 per cent based on data of the last 10 days, the minister said.

"It is good that death rate is less than 1 per cent lately, it used to above 3.5-4 per cent for a month earlier," Jain said.

Interacting with reporters, he reiterated that reports of the sero-prevalance survey conducted in the first week of September will be first put before the high court.

Cases of COVID-19 in the city will show a rise in the next ten days, as testing capacity has been quadrupled, Jain had had earlier said, while asserting that plan is to contain spread of infection in the long-run through effective isolation.

"The situation as of now is fine," Jain said on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to gym owners and people coming for workouts at these establishments to follow preventive measures against COVID-19.

Representatives of the gym associations met the chief minister and thanked him for allowing these establishments to reopen in the city.

"I appeal to all gym operators of Delhi and people coming for workouts at these centres to follow safety rules. We also have to stop the spread of coronavirus and stay healthy as well," Kejriwal said in a tweet in Hindi.

According to the Chief Minister's Office, during the meeting, the CM also assured support to the gym operators in future.

Meanwhile, Delhi's coronavirus tally breached the 2.38 lakh mark with 4,127 fresh cases while the death toll mounted to 4,907 on Friday, authorities said.

Thirty fresh fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours, they added.

The number of rapid-antigen tests conducted on Thursday stood at 49,834, while the RT-PCR, CBNAAT and True NAAT test figures were 11,203, in all adding to 61,037 COVID-19 tests, according to the health bulletin issued by the Delhi government.

With 4,432 fresh coronavirus cases, Delhi's caseload went over 2.34 lakh on Thursday while the death toll reached 4,877 with 38 fresh fatalities.

The city's COVID-19 tally has reached 2,38,828 and the death toll mounted to 4,907, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

The active cases on Friday rose to 32,250 from 31,721 the previous day, the bulletin said.

The number of containment zones in Delhi jumped to 1,751 from 1,670 on Thursday, it said.

On Friday, over 4,000 cases were recorded for 61,037 tests conducted the previous day. As on Friday, the number of tests done per million was over 1,27,927 while the total number of tests stood at 24,30,629.

The positivity rate is 6.76 per cent, a decline from 7.38 per cent the previous day, while the recovery rate is 84.44 per cent, the bulletin said, adding that the case fatality rate stands at 2.05 per cent.

According to the bulletin, out of the total number of 14,974 beds in COVID hospitals, 6,956 are vacant.

It said 2,335 beds in COVID care centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned to the country under the Vande Bharat Mission and by bubble flights.

The bulletin said 2,01,671 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far.

The number of people in home isolation stands at

18,701 up from 18,038 the previous day.