Daily deaths above 30 for 6th day in a row as new cases drop below 4K
New Delhi: Delhi's COVID-19 count went past 2.46 lakh on Sunday with 3,812 more people contracting the viral disease, while 37 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,982, according to the Delhi government's health bulletin.
Before this, the city recorded over 4,000 cases for five consecutive days.
Of the total 2,46,711 cases reported in Delhi so far, 2,09,632 have either recovered, been discharged or migrated out of the city, the bulletin said, adding that 3,742 COVID-19 patients had recovered in the last 24 hours.
But while daily testing dipped slightly, the Delhi government is struggling to increase the share of RT-PCR tests among all tests, with RT-PCR tests still not even one-fourth of total tests in the last 24 hours.
The official health bulletin showed that of the 52,405 tests conducted yesterday, 11,322 were RT-PCR tests (around 21 per cent) and the rest were rapid antigen tests. Health authorities have conducted around 5.92 lakh tests in the last 10 days - an average of more than 59,000 tests a day, according to government data.
However, what is concerning is that for six consecutive days now, the Capital has added over 30 COVID-19 deaths to its toll. On Saturday, the city added 38 deaths due to the contagious disease, on September 18, it was 30, 38 again on September 17, 33 on September 16 and 36 deaths on September 15.
Health Minister Satyendar Jain also took a meeting of medical directors of the Delhi government-run hospitals to review the status of testing. The death rate for the last 10 days stood at 0.77 per cent. The case positivity rate during the last 24 hours was 7.27 per cent while the cumulative positivity rate is 9.66 per cent, the bulletin said.
The number of active cases increased by over 190 per cent in the city since mid-August. There were 11,068 active COVID-19 cases on August 18 which increased to 32,097 on Sunday. Of the total 15,621 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, 7,040 are occupied and around 19,000 patients are under home isolation, according to government data.
There has been an over 235 per cent increase in the number of containment zones in the city in a month — from 557 on August 18 to 1,872 on Sunday.
Government officials and experts have been cautioning to people to wear masks, observe social distancing and venture out only when urgently required to help contain the spread of the infection. They have also warned that though the economy has been slowly reopened, "it is still a health emergency".
