NEW DELHI: Even as the daily count of Covid cases is still hovering around the 20,000-mark, there is a silver lining for the Delhi government as positivity rate is down by about nine per cent within 10 days.
On April 26, the positivity rate was 35.02 per cent when 57, 690 tests were conducted which plummeted to 26.37 per cent on Wednesday. According to the Wednesday health bulletin, 79,491 tests were done in the last 24 hours of which 20,960 tested Covid positive.
Delhi recorded 19,953 cases on Tuesday while the positivity rate was 26.73 per cent with the number of tests at around 74,654. The toll was 338, which was down to 311 on Wednesday. CM Arvind Kejriwal on April 19 announced a six-day lockdown to break the chain of infections. The restrictions were extended for a week and subsequently till May 19.
A look at the daily health bulletins of the last 10 days shows that the positivity rate is declining after April 22. The city recorded a 36.2 percent positivity rate, which was the highest ever number since the pandemic broke out last year. Total 72,208 tests were undertaken on that day.
On April 27, the positivity rate was 32.7 per cent which further dipped to 31.8 the next day. However, it slightly increased on April 29 at 32.8 per cent and went down by just 0.1 per cent the next day. On May 1, it was 31.6 per cent and then fell in the next 24 hours to 28.3 per cent. The positivity rate was 29.6 per cent on May 3.
A government official said the drop in the positivity rate was going down by one per cent each day approximately. “The government has not only ramped up testing, but also worked relentlessly in increasing the number of beds. We are aggressively pushing vaccinations, which will further help bring down the positivity rate.”