Slight rise in cases as city unlocks

NEW DELHI:  Daily coronavirus infections showed a slight jump for the second consecutive day on Wednesday. With 337 fresh infections, the tally of Covid cases has reached 14,30,128 in the city, according to the health department bulletin. 

On Monday, when the restrictions were relaxed allowing markets to function, the city had registered cases below 300 for the first time after March 2. On that day, 231 cases were reported out of 63,610 tests, with positivity rate dipping to 0.36 per cent. On Tuesday, however, 317 new cases were registered.

The daily positivity rate in the city on Wednesday stood at 0.46 per cent, according to the bulletin. Also, 36 patients succumbed to the infection, taking the death toll to 24,704. Active caseload continued to decline and stood at 4,511, a decrease of 451 cases from the 4,962 reported previously on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, daily new recoveries continued to be more than the new infections. As many as 752 patients were discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries to 1,400,913, the data from the bulletin also showed.

From Monday onwards, the national capital has stepped into unlocking in a phase-wise manner. The metro services are operating with 50 per cent capacity while markets and malls are opening in the odd-even manner. However, some experts cautioned the Delhi government that its odd-even policy of market reopening is not scientific and may not be effective.

3 DAYS of relaxed restrictions
The Delhi government started the unlock process, in which markets were allowed to open from Monday on an odd-even basis. The Metro also started running with 50%  capacity