City's doubling rate now at 101.5 days: Delhi govt

New Delhi: As Delhi on Wednesday reported 1,215 new COVID-19 cases and added 22 fatalities from the contagious disease, the Delhi government here said that the Capital's doubling rate of Coronavirus cases has now gone up to 101.5 days. The country's doubling rate currently stands at 28.8 days.

The official health bulletin on Wednesday said the total number of cases here had reached 1,57,354 and that the death toll had gone up to 4,257, with a total of 11,271 active cases remaining, of which 5,707 are recovering under home isolation.

The city had conducted a total of 17,004 tests in the last 24 hours, of which 6,010 were RT-PCR tests and 10,994 were rapid antigen tests.

The Delhi government said that the positivity rate for RT-PCR tests and rapid antigen tests had dropped significantly, On June 18, at the peak of the outbreak here, the positivity rate for RT-PCR tests was at 30.85 per cent but the same was brought down to 10.57 per cent as of August 16.

The statement from the city government said that the total positivity rate in Delhi had also decreased from 24.59 per cent on June 18 to 5.25 per cent as on August 16.

"On June 18, 3316 Rapid tests were conducted of which 247 were positive indicating a positivity rate of 7.42%. In comparison, on August 16, 10,882 Rapid tests were conducted in Delhi of which 353 positives emerged — a positivity rate of 3.24 percent," the statement added.

The Delhi government added that the mortality rate from the virus in the city was currently at 1.4 per cent, compared to the national average of 1.92 per cent and that the recovery rate is at 90.2 per cent.

The DDMA meeting which was held on Wednesday to review the status of COVID-19 in the city brought to light that the doubling rate of Corona cases was the same as the rest of India at 20 days, as of July 1. "It was 58 days on July 17, around 90 days on August 1, and has currently increased to 101.5 days. In comparison, for the rest of India, the doubling rate has remained between 20 and 27 days since July 1," the Delhi government statement said.

The government here added, "The improvements made inside the hospitals such as ramping up the infrastructure, increasing ICU beds and wards, and supplying oxygen concentrators to patients recovering in hospitals as well as home isolation has yielded positive results."

"Today, the recovery rate in Delhi is 90.2 per cent as compared to 72.5 per cent recovery rate for the rest of India. Out of a total of 1,57,354 cases in Delhi, 1,41,826 cases have recovered, which shows a significant improvement in the Corona situation," the health department mentioned in its report to DDMA.