Delhi: Active Covid-19 cases dip 95% in a month, but risk remains

NEW DELHI: On Sunday, the national capital saw 124 new Covid-19 patients — the lowest daily count since February 16 — with a positivity rate of 0.17%. The capital also recorded seven Covid-19 fatalities for the second day in a row.
The number of Covid-19 patients who recovered or got discharged in the last 24 hours is 398, more than three times the number of fresh cases. As a result, the number of active cases has gone down to 2,091, which compared with the 40,214 active cases on May 20 is a dip of almost 95%.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain, however, warned that the dip doesn’t mean the pandemic has ended and the capital can escape the third wave only if people wear masks and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. He added that directions have been issued to district magistrates and Delhi Police to take strict action against those violating Covid norms.
Since Unlock 3 came into effect on Monday, stringent enforcement by district authorities have also resulted in the number of fines going up. The last seven days saw 36,909 total fines being issued across the 11 revenue districts of Delhi, with an average of 5,273 a day, with the highest – 5,583 – issued on Sunday. The average daily fines issued the week prior to this was 4,192 and 3,870 in the week after Unlock 1. The month of May, in comparison, was 2,507 fines being issued every day on an average.
Jain also said on Sunday that all deaths that occur in Delhi are entered in the ‘death register’ and no one can tinker with the number of deaths in Delhi, including those occurring due to Covid-19. “No one can increase or decrease the number of deaths in Delhi,” he told reporters in the context of some states reporting ‘backlog deaths’.
The death toll on Sunday stood at 24,914, with a case fatality rate of 1.74%. In the last 24 hours, 72,670 tests were carried out, including 52,790 RT-PCR tests and 19,880 Rapid Antigen Tests.
The number of patients recuperating in home isolation in the city as on Sunday is 600, while 1,281 are admitted in hospitals. Out of the total 23,638 hospital beds, 22,357 are vacant. There are a total of 6,630 Covid ICU beds in Delhi and 5,909 were vacant at 10pm on Sunday, according to the Delhi government’s online Corona dashboard, including 1,997 vacant ICU beds with ventilators out of 2,503 ones.
The last week recorded 13 fatalities on average every day, which is less than half of the 33.1 average fatalities recorded every day the week before.