The COVID-19 situation in the Capital seems to have improved over the past few days, but given the unpredictability factor, there is no room for complacency, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday.

Mr. Kejriwal said that the situation was not “as terrible as it seemed” a month ago. “However, precautions still need to be taken even as sustainable efforts of all agencies and stakeholders had resulted in only 26,000 active cases in Delhi against the earlier prediction of 60,000 cases by June 30,” he said.

“Around a month ago, when the lockdown was lifted in Delhi, there was a sudden surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in the city. We had anticipated the rise, but there was an unexpected increase. During that time, the website created by the national experts for the Central government used to provide us with future projections of the number of cases in the country after one-two months,” Mr. Kejriwal said.

According to the website, the Delhi government’s own projections showed that by June 30 there would be around 1 lakh cases in the city, out of which 60,000 would be active and around 15,000 hospital beds would be needed. However, there were only 26,000 active cases in Delhi, which is one-third of the predicted figure.

Mr. Kejriwal said that around 250 new patients were being admitted to hospitals every day earlier.

“Till Wednesday morning, there were 5,800 COVID-19 patients in all the hospitals in Delhi. One week ago, there were 6,250 patients, which means there has been a dip of 450. A month ago, around 38% of patients had recovered and today, the recovery rate is 66%. Of 87,000 COVID-19 patients, 58,000 have recovered,” he added.

“On June 23, there were 3,950 new cases in Delhi and on Tuesday there were 2,200 new cases. This means that the number of new cases being recorded daily has also seen a dip. It has been around 2,000 for the last 3-4,” he noted.

The death rate in Delhi has also decreased, he said, adding that the city has been recording around 60-65 deaths now as against 125 earlier. “Initially, reports of 31 out of 100 people, who were tested, would come positive, but this number has come down to 13 now.”

“This shows that the situation is under control now. This is the result of efforts put in by the people of the city... but we still need to be cautious. The nature of this virus is unpredictable, nobody knows what it may bring tomorrow. It is possible that cases increase in the coming days,” he said.