Delhi: No dining in at restaurants from tomorrow but takeaway services to be allowed

The decision was taken in the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) meeting on Monday, where restrictions, cases and bed availability were discussed.

“In view of the increase in positive cases it was decided to close the restaurants and bars and to allow ‘take away’ facility only. It was also decided to allow operation of only one weekly market per day per zone,” Delhi L-G, Anil Baijal tweeted.

According to officials present in the DDMA meeting, the sharp increase in the number of Covid cases and deaths over the past two weeks has authorities worried.

One in four persons in Delhi tested positive for Covid on Monday, even as the absolute number of cases were fewer as compared to a day ago on account of fewer tests being conducted on Sunday. There were 19,166 new cases reported in Monday’s health bulletin as compared to 22,751 cases a day ago. Delhi saw a rapid increase in the number of cases since December-end, with the daily tally swelling up from less than 500 to over 22,000 in just twelve days.

There were 76,670 tests conducted on Sunday as reported in Monday’s bulletin in comparison to an average of over 87,700 tests conducted a day over the last week, including over 100,000 tests on one occasion. The positivity rate – proportion of samples that return positive – stood at 25%, as per the bulletin.

Delhi also reported 17 deaths due to the infection for the second day in a row on Monday. There have been 70 deaths due to the infection in the first ten days of the year, the data shows. There were only nine deaths in December, seven in November, four in October, and five in September as per the data.