At 31.9%, Delhi sees highest Covid positivity rate in 15 months

NEW DELHI: Delhi on Saturday recorded 1,396 Covid cases with a positivity rate of 31.9%, the highest in 15 months. The city had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6% on January 14 last year. On Thursday, the national capital had recorded 1,527 cases.
Five deaths were registered in the last 24 hours. According to a release issued by the Delhi government, out of the five deaths, four deaths were cases of an "incidental" detection and the cause was not primarily Covid, however, one was due to the virus.
The number of corona cases has been rising since the beginning of this week as 980 positive cases were registered on April 11; 1,149 on April 12 and 1,527 on April 13. The government did not release the health bulletin on Friday.
Saturday's case count took the total active case count in the city to 4,631. Of these, 267 are admitted in the hospital, including 93 in the ICU with 66 on oxygen support and 12 on ventilator.
About 3,906 corona tests were conducted across the city over the past 24 hours. Health officials said that they were keeping an eye on the situation and that there was no reason to panic as the number of hospitalisations and patients with serious illness was low.
According to figures provided by the government, out of the total 7,951 beds available in dedicated Covid hospitals, only 3.36% (267) were occupied, while no admission was reported across Covid health centres and care centres, where nearly 200 beds are available.Epidemiologists say the new Covid variant XBB.1.16 could be behind the recent surge.