The positivity rate on Monday, at 2.52%, was marginally higher than that of Sunday, which was 2.42%. Delhi reported a positivity rate below 3% for the second consecutive day on Monday, with 1,550 Covid-19 cases reported in the city in the last 24 hours.
The positivity rate on Monday, at 2.52%, was marginally higher than that of Sunday, which was 2.42%.
In total, 61,506 people were tested in the last 24 hours, of whom 1,550 tested positive.
The city has been reporting a positivity rate below 5% since May 21. It has been gradually decreasing, from 4.56% to 3.58% to below 3% in the last two days.
At the peak of the ongoing wave, Delhi saw its highest positivity rate at 36.24% a little over a month ago on April 22 and over 28,000 new cases in a day on April 20.
However, despite the drop in positivity rates, the reported number of deaths every day continues to remain high — 207 deaths were reported on Monday.
The drop in the number of cases has also opened up the availability of Covid ICU beds in the city, which were severely in short supply earlier during this wave.
Currently, there are 2,631 ICU beds available in the city according to the government’s ‘corona dashboard’.
However, all ICU beds continue to be occupied in some hospitals with large number of beds such as AIIMS Jhajjar, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, BLK Hospital and Fortis Shalimar Bagh.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, meanwhile, visited the oxygen depot in Mayapuri on Monday. The depot has been set up to store a consignment of 6,000 oxygen cylinders received from China. Around 4,400 of these cylinders have been received, while the remaining will be received in a couple of days, Kejriwal said while speaking about preparations being made for the next wave of Covid cases.
He said that these cylinders can be given to individuals in need, and if another wave emerges and the cases rise again, then with these 6,000 cylinders the government can prepare 3,000 oxygen beds, as two cylinders are needed on each oxygen bed.
“We faced a lot of challenges in importing these 6,000 cylinders from China. Both HCL and Give India Foundation have made donations for this. I would like to especially thank the Indian embassy in Beijing. They have helped us a lot. The Ministry of External Affairs has also helped us a lot. We are also buying oxygen concentrators on a large scale. Whatever problems we faced during this wave are now being resolved,” the CM said.
AAP MLA Atishi, meanwhile, said that while vaccine shots were not available for the 18-44 category in government centres, private hospitals had enough doses to continue with the drive.
“Why is it that private hospitals, who are inoculating people at a cost of Rs 850-1,250 per dose, have enough vaccines, but not the Delhi government, which is immunising people for free? This is sheer injustice by the Centre as the schedule is prepared by them. At Rs 1,000 per dose, a family of five would have to spend Rs 10,000 on vaccines. There are homes in Delhi which have a collective income of Rs 10,000 a month. How can they afford this? The Centre gave us 8.17 lakh doses in the month of May for the category, and allotment for June is less than half of this — 4 lakh. The youngsters are at high risk and are anxious, as they know that after the lifting of lockdown they will have to travel in public transport to their offices, which makes them highly vulnerable to the virus. Hence, immunising them is crucial… Around 69,000 people were vaccinated on Saturday and Sunday,” she said.
Delhi was vaccinating over one lakh people a day before the shortage began.
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