Satyendar Jain said that the govt is continuing ‘aggressive testing’ in the state. (File photo)

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that the government was continuing “aggressive testing” as the state recorded 1,358 new Covid-19 cases Monday, taking the total tally to 1,74,748. The death toll reached 4,444 with the capital reporting 18 more deaths in the last 24 hours.

Delhi also saw 1,507 recoveries in 24 hours, taking the total number of people who have recovered from the virus in the capital to 1,55,678. The positivity rate in Delhi is about 9% while the growth rate stands at around 1%.

On the directions of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the district officials have been asked to ramp up the testing in the city to reach the target of 40,000 tests per day. However, the number of tests conducted on Monday was 14,389, much lower than the average 20,000 done per day.

“We have sufficient stock of Covid-19 testing kits for 10-15 days, but we are procuring more from the market to meet the target of 40,000 tests per day. The 300 health facilities in Delhi are already testing a large number of people. We don’t want to leave any case,” Jain said on Monday.

From Tuesday, the state government will start the third round of serological surveillance in Delhi in which about 17,000 people will be tested to check the prevalence of novel coronavirus in the general public.

Jain said that many people were going out without wearing masks and added that teams had been deployed to penalise such violators of public safety norms, including imposing fines.

He said that the doubling rate of coronavirus cases in Delhi was 85 days, which he said was at a “comfortable level”.