Highlights
- Delhi recorded 2,202 Covid cases, the highest in six months, with a positivity rate of 11.84%
- It was the second consecutive day that the daily count of Covid cases crossed the 2,000-mark
- Delhi has reported a few cases of the BA.4 and the BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron
Delhi on Thursday recorded 2,202 Covid cases, the highest in six months, with a positivity rate of 11.84 per cent, while four more people died due to the disease, according to health department data. It was the second consecutive day that the daily count of Covid cases crossed the 2,000-mark. Thursday's case count was the highest since February 4, when the national capital logged 2,272 cases and 20 deaths.
Delhi on Wednesday reported 2,073 COVID-19 cases with a positivity rate of 11.64 per cent. The number of deaths recorded on Wednesday was the highest since June 25 when six deaths were reported due to COVID-19 in the city.
Also, this was the fourth day in a row that the positivity rate breached the 10-per cent mark. The fresh cases came out of 18,596 Covid tests conducted in the city on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Delhi had reported 1,506 Covid cases and three fatalities, while the positivity rate stood at 10.69 per cent.
With the fresh infections on Thursday, the COVID-19 case tally in the national capital rose to 19,62,374 while the death toll reached 26,325.
The positivity rate and the daily Covid cases count in the city have risen steadily in the last one week or so.
On Monday, Delhi reported a positivity rate of 11.41 per cent, with 822 cases and two fatalities. A day before that, the city recorded 1,263 COVID-19 cases with a positivity rate of 9.35 per cent. On Saturday, the city logged 1,333 cases with a positivity rate of 8.39 per cent, while three people succumbed to the viral disease. The city saw 1,245 Covid cases on Friday with a positivity rate of 7.36 per cent, and one fatality.
Delhi currently has 6,175 active cases of the disease, up from 5,637 the previous day. As many as 3,587 Covid patients are in home-isolation.
Of the 9,406 beds reserved for coronavirus patients in various Delhi hospitals, only 405 were occupied on Thursday. Beds at Covid care centres and Covid health centres were lying vacant, the latest bulletin said. There are 197 containment zones in the city at present, it added.
People letting their guard down and not following social distancing norms are leading to a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi, experts said on Thursday, while stressing that these fluctuations also indicate that the disease is at the endemic stage.
Delhi has reported a few cases of the BA.4 and the BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron, which are highly transmissible. The number of daily COVID-19 cases in Delhi had touched the record high of 28,867 on January 13 this year during the third wave of the pandemic. The city had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 per cent on January 14, the highest during the third wave of the pandemic.
