Amid worrying Covid-19 trend in Mumbai, a ray of hope seems to be coming from Delhi as the national capital on Monday recorded below 400 cases with over 62,000 tests in a day. This comes months after the national capital battled sharp spike in cases, prompting states like Maharashtra to make negative Covid test mandatory for passengers arriving from Delhi.
According to experts, the winter season and dangerously high levels of air pollution had significantly worsened efforts to control the virus. The sudden rise in cases was also attributed to the busy festival season between September and December. The national capital had banned the sale and use of firecrackers and officials had reinforced the need for social distancing, but visuals of crowds thronging markets in the city had caused alarm. Authorities found a high positivity rate among shopkeepers in some of the oldest markets, which were at risk of becoming hotspots.
The city had recorded 419 fresh cases on Saturday, while 431 cases were recorded on Friday, the highest single-day spike in over two months. The count on Thursday was 409. Delhi had registered 370 new cases on Wednesday and 320 on Tuesday. The city had reported three COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday and four on Tuesday.
A total of 585 cases were reported on January 1 and 424 on January 3. The daily count had dropped to 306 on January 11 and risen again to 386 on January 12, according to official figures. The numbers had started to come down in February. On February 26, the month’s highest daily count of 256 new cases was recorded.
The new coronavirus cases recorded on Sunday took the infection tally to 6,43,696, the bulletin said. The number of active cases in the city rose to 2,262 on Sunday from 2,207 on Saturday.
Health experts and doctors have attributed this “sudden rise” of COVID-19 cases to people turning complacent, not following COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and “assuming that all is well now”. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had on Friday said the figures of over 400 per day suddenly were “not alarming”, and had asserted that the positivity rate was still below one per cent.
The total number of tests conducted on Saturday stood at 68,223, including 41,195 RT-PCR tests and 27,028 rapid antigen tests, the bulletin said. The number of people under home isolation on Sunday rose to 1,270 from 1,204 on Saturday, it said, adding that over 6.30 lakh people have recovered from the infection till date.
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