In a month, active Covid cases dip to a fourth from about a lakh in Delhi

NEW DELHI: The capital on Monday recorded 1,550 fresh Covid-19 cases — the lowest in 55 days. The positivity rate, which had dipped to 2.42% on Sunday, rose slightly to 2.52% on Monday.
After remaining below the 200-mark for the past couple of days, the number of Covid fatalities was 207 in the past 24 hours.
Sunday saw the positivity rate dip below 2.5% for the first time in 56. The 1,550 fresh cases recorded in the past 24 hours were an outcome of 61,506 tests, including 44,342 RT-PCR tests and 17,164 Rapid Antigen Tests. The number of new cases on Monday was the lowest since March 30, which saw 992 fresh cases at a positivity rate of 2.7%.
“Now the cases are reducing significantly. This time last month, around 28,000 cases were recorded but now they have come down to 1,500. The infection rate had also reached 36% in the last week of April, coming down to around 2.5 %,” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told reporters on Monday after visiting an oxygen depot in Mayapuri. “It seems that this wave is subsiding but there has been no laxity in the efforts by Delhi government. We have already started preparing for the next wave,” he added.
Kejriwal later tweeted: “Second wave in control, started preparation for third wave. Imported 6,000 oxygen cylinders. Can set up 3,000 oxygen beds with these. Grateful to HCL, Give India and central govt (especially Indian embassy in Beijing) for helping us get these cylinders to Delhi. Many more preps underway (sic).”
With 4,375 patients recovering from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the number of active cases on Monday stood at 24,578, one-fourth of what it was on April 28, when the figure reached an all-time high of 99,725 active cases. In the past 26 days, Delhi has seen the number of active cases dip by 75.3% with the number of Covid patients recovering far outnumbering the number of fresh cases.
Since May 13, hospitals have seen the number of patients getting discharged grow each day even as new admissions dip. On Sunday, Delhi hospitals saw 412 new Covid admissions, while the number of patients who were discharged being more than double at 905.
The number of patients recuperating in home isolation stood at 13,806 on Monday, while another 8,791 are admitted in hospitals. Sunday saw the number of Covid patients admitted in hospital beds dip below the 10,000-mark for the first time since April 14.
Out of the 24,944 hospital beds in the capital, 16,153 are vacant, while 5,999 of the 6,407 beds in dedicated Covid Care Centres and 522 of the 606 beds in dedicated Covid Health Centres lie vacant, as per the health bulletin shared by the state government. Meanwhile, out of the 6,944 Covid ICU beds in Delhi, 2,634 were vacant at 10pm on Monday, according to the Delhi government’s online Corona dashboard.