People at Sarojini Nagar Market as markets reopen in full capacity after Odd-Even restrictions lift in New Delhi on Friday. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna) The number of Covid-19 cases in the capital has remained almost the same, even as the positivity rate dropped further. There were 4,044 fresh cases reported in Friday’s health bulletin, just over 200 cases short of the previous day’s 4,291 when the tally dropped below the 5,000-mark for the first time since the current surge began.
The positivity rate – the proportion of samples tested that return positive – stood at 8.60 per cent on Friday with just 47,042 tests conducted. In comparison, 60,080 tests were conducted every day on an average over the last seven days. Usually, when the number of tests increases, the positivity rate goes down. At the peak of the current wave, the positivity rate rose to 30.64 per cent, the data shows.
The number of tests had dropped in Delhi after the Central government guidelines did away with testing on-demand for asymptomatic people and low-risk contacts of a positive case. It picked up again after the Centre asked state governments to continue testing even asymptomatic persons.
The capital also recorded 25 deaths due to the infection on Friday, down from 34 the previous day. This takes January’s toll to 662, which is the highest since the 740 deaths reported in June when the Delta variant-driven wave was waning in the city. The capital continues to report around 30 deaths each day even as the number of cases is going down.
At the peak of the Delta wave in Delhi, 448 deaths were recorded on a single day on May 3 and a total of 8,090 deaths were recorded in the entire month. At the peak of both the Delta and Omicron waves, there were over 28,000 cases reported in a day. Nine deaths were reported in the month of December, seven in November, four in October and five in September.
There are 29,152 persons with active infection, according to the health bulletin, of whom 1,928 are admitted to hospitals across the city. As many as 151 persons are on ventilators and 553 on oxygen support.
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