Total recoveries 5 times more than active cases
New Delhi: Delhi on Tuesday reported 1,606 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally here to 1,15,346. However, 93,236 people have recovered from the contagious disease, taking total recoveries to almost five times the number of active cases which stood at 18,664 on Tuesday. A total of 1,924 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours.
The Capital also added 35 deaths to the toll, taking total fatalities from the virus here to 3,446. This is the fourth consecutive day when fresh cases have been reported in the range of 1,000-2,000. The Delhi government said that 10,695 patients are recovering in home isolation and the official health bulletin
showed that 21,063 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, of which 5,650 were RT-PCR tests and 15,413 were rapid antigen tests.
The number of containment zones in the national Capital stood at 657, one less than the previous day. Last week, the number of containment zones increased by more than 150 after the city government decided to break the existing hotspots into smaller clusters for better surveillance.
Meanwhile, a low-cost COVID-19 test kit developed by the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi that uses an alternative testing method will be launched on Wednesday, according to the IIT director here. IIT Delhi, which became the first academic institute to develop a COVID-19 testing method, gave non-exclusive open licenses to companies for commercialising the test, but with a price rider.
While the institute had capped it at Rs 500 per kit, the company Newtech Medical Devices, which is launching the kit named 'Corosure' on Wednesday, has not announced its pricing yet.
Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' and Minister of State for HRD Sanjay Dhotre will launch the kit.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the National Centre for Disease Control to file its report on the results and analysis of the antibody testing, also called sero surveillance, carried out in the national Capital.
The Delhi government had between June 27 to July 5 collected a total of 21,793 antibody samples from across the city and had sent it to NCDC which had not till date given the results. A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad directed the NCDC to place the test results before it by July 16 and added that the report shall also include analysis of the results. It also asked the Director of NCDC to be present on the next date of hearing to assist the court.
