A health worker takes a nasal swab to test for COVID-19 in New Delhi.
The number of containment zones in the national capital stood at 734 on Thursday, recording an increase of 80 zones in the last two days, according to Delhi government's daily health bulletin. On Wednesday, Delhi had a total of 716 containment zones, while the figures were 654 a day prior to that. The capital city has added 145 containment zones in the last one week. On August 1, it had 539 zones.
The zones are being divided into smaller clusters for better surveillance amid a recent spike in the number of coronavirus cases in the national capital. With a single-day spike of 1,840 coronavirus cases, the highest this month, and 22 deaths in the last 24 hours, Delhi's Covid-19 tally touched 1,67,604.
On Wednesday, a spike of 1,693 fresh cases had prompted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to hold a press conference to acknowledge the surge and urge people to follow the safety protocols.
According to Delhi government's daily health bulletin, as many as 1,50,027 people have recovered, over eleven times the number of active cases which stand at 13,208. A total of 1,130 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours. As many as 4,369 people have succumbed to the deadly virus so far.
Over 7,043 RT-PCR and 14,018 rapid antigen tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. A total of 1,503,722 tests have been conducted so far.
The positivity rate, which is the percentage of tests which return positive, has also started to rise again, and stands at 8.7 per cent. This metric, coupled with an increase in fresh cases, indicates that coronavirus is spreading fast.
Currently, 3,814 beds are occupied in the hospitals out of a total capacity of 14,135, 715 beds are occupied in the dedicated Covid Care Centres out of 10,143 and 243 in the dedicated Covid Health Centres against the availability of 594 beds. Over 6,596 people are under home isolation.
The national capital had on June 23 registered the highest single-day spike of 3,947 cases, pursuant to which the cases plummeted and remained low in the month of July and half of August.
The uptick in cases are being attributed to complacent behaviour of people after re-opening of the economy, returning migrant labourers and increase in out-station patients seeking treatment in city hospitals.
