Covid-19: Positivity rate dips below 2% after 2 months in Delhi

NEW DELHI: The capital on Wednesday recorded 1,491 new Covid cases, while the positivity rate dipped below 2% (1.93%) for the first time since March 27.
According to Delhi health bulletin, 77,103 Covid-19 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours, including 53,542 RT-PCR and 23,561 rapid antigen tests. The Covid fatalities stood at 130 during the same period. This is the first time the figure dipped below the 150-mark in seven weeks.
The last time the single-day toll was below 150 was on April 16 when the city recorded 141 deaths. The figure on Wednesday was the lowest since April 15 when 112 people died of Covid. In May, the figure hovered around the 450-mark. The death toll currently stands at 23,695 with a case fatality rate of 1.67%.
From 28,000 new cases in a day and positivity rate of over 36%, Delhi has seen the numbers come down significantly this month. Health minister Satyendar Jain ascribed the decline to the lockdown imposed on April 19. “It appears that corona is in control now,” he said. Jain added that, due to the decline in cases and positivity rate, a huge number of hospital beds were now vacant, including 33% of Covid ICU beds.
With 3,952 patients recovering from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, the number of active cases on Wednesday stood at 19,148. From an all-time high of 99,725 active cases on April 28, Delhi has seen the number dip by over 80%. On Tuesday, for instance, 388 new Covid admissions were made to Delhi’s hospitals, while 919 were discharged.
The number of patients recuperating in home isolation as on Wednesday was 10,079, while 7,228 were admitted to hospitals. Of the 25,106 hospital beds, 17,878 were vacant, while 6,090 of the 6,407 beds at dedicated Covid care centres and 530 of 606 beds at Covid health centres were free, the bulletin said.
Of the total 6,887 Covid ICU beds in the capital, 3,071 were vacant at 10pm on Wednesday, including 724 vacant ICU beds with ventilators, stated Delhi government’s online Corona dashboard.