JOIN USAt 85, Delhi logs lowest Covid-19 cases spike this year
The national capital recorded 85 fresh cases of coronavirus, the lowest daily count this year, and nine more deaths on Saturday, according to data shared by the Health Department here.
The positivity rate dipped to 0.12 per cent, it said.
The nine new fatalities have pushed the death toll in the city to 24,961.
On Monday, Delhi had reported 89 coronavirus cases with a positivity rate of 0.16 per cent, while 11 people had died, the data showed.
Ninety-four people had been diagnosed Covid positive on February 16 while the daily tally was 96 on January 27, according to official figures.
The 89 cases recorded on Monday was the first time, the daily count of coronavirus cases had gone below the 100-mark since February 16.
Delhi had recorded 111 cases and seven deaths on Wednesday, while the positivity rate stood at 0.15 per cent.
On Thursday, 109 Covid-19 cases and eight deaths were recorded while on Friday, 115 cases and four deaths, lowest since March 21, were reported.
The infection rate which had reached to 36 per cent in the last week of April, has come down to below 0.20 per cent now.
Despite fall in daily cases in the last several days, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had recently cautioned that the chances of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic were quite real, while he asserted that his government was preparing on a "war-footing" to combat it.
Delhi had been reeling under a brutal second wave of the pandemic, claiming a massive number of lives daily, with the recent oxygen supply shortage issue at various hospitals, adding to the woes.
Since April 19, both daily cases and single-day deaths count had been spiralling up, with over 28,000 cases and 277 deaths recorded on April 20; rising to 306 fatalities on April 22. On May 3, the city registered a record 448 deaths, the official data showed.
However, the number of cases have shown a downward trend and the positivity rate too has been shrinking in the last several days. The number of deaths per day has also been showing a decline in the last couple of days.
On May 15, Kejriwal had said, "The virus is reducing in Delhi slowly and steadily, and I hope it diminishes completely and does not rise again. However, we are not going to become negligent in anyway", while sounding a tone of caution.
The Delhi government had earlier announced reopening of restaurants with 50 per cent capacity and one weekly market per municipal zone from June 14.
With close gathering of shoppers in markets and restaurants resuming business amid phased unlock in the national capital, doctors have cautioned that Delhi could face a "worse than second wave situation" of Covid-19 if people do not adhere to safety norms or lower their guards.
A total of 72,920 tests, including 50,839 RT-PCR tests and 22,081 rapid antigen tests, were conducted a day ago, according to a health bulletin released on Saturday.
The total number of cases on Saturday stood at 14,33,675. Over 14 lakh patients have recovered from the virus.
The number of active cases decreased to 1,598 on Saturday from 1,680 a day before.
The number of people under home isolation decreased to 4,94 from 503 on Friday while the number of containment zones dropped to 1,817 from 2,048 a day before, the bulletin said.