NEW DELHI: With the national capital registering an upsurge in Covid-19 cases, there has been a rise of over 36 per cent in the number of active cases and a steady increase in the people under home isolation and count of containment zones in the last eight days. The positivity rate also rose to 0.60 per cent on March 6 from 0.36 per cent on February 27, according to official figures.
Delhi recorded 321 Covid-19 cases on Friday, the highest number of daily incidences in nearly one-and-a-half months, while one more fatality pushed the death toll in the city to 10,919. On Saturday, there were 1,779 active cases in the city--the same as Friday. This is a huge increase from the 1,307 active cases on February 27. In the same period, the number of people under home isolation rose to 879 from 627.
The number of containment zones in the city on March 6 stood at 562 while there were 545 containment zones in Delhi on February 27. However, the number of daily deaths have remained in the single digits in the last several weeks. The 321 new cases on Saturday came from 53,062 tests conducted on Friday, including 28,685 RT-PCR tests and 24,377 rapid antigen tests, the bulletin said.
According to the Delhi Health Bulletin, over 6.28 lakh people have recovered to date. In the beginning of this year, from January 15-26, the daily figures had ranged from 148 on January 25 to 299 on January 16. Delhi had recorded 94 fresh COVID-19 cases on February 16, the lowest in over nine months. On February 9, 13, 17 and 25, and March 2 the death count recorded on all days was zero.
However, after a week on February 24, it more than doubled to 200 and increased further to 220 on February 25 and 256 on February 26. Health experts and doctors had attributed this ‘sudden rise’ to complacency in people, not following Covid-19 norms and ‘assuming all is well now’.Observing the trends and rise in the number of admissions, doctors have warned that the number of cases could go up in the coming months and urged people to continue to wear masks and follow safety norms.