New Delhi: The coronavirus situation continued to deteriorate sharply in the national capital on Sunday. Delhi recorded its highest single-day spike of 10,774 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative tally to 7,25,197. Earlier, the highest single-day spike of 8,593 new coronavirus cases was recorded on November 11 last year.
The national capital had recorded 7,897 fresh coronavirus infections on Saturday, 8,521 on Friday, 7,437 on Thursday, 5,506 on Wednesday and 5,100 on Tuesday.
The number of new cases reported came out of 1,14,288 tests conducted on the previous day. At least 76,954 RTPCR/CBNAAT/TrueNat tests and 37,334 rapid antigen tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate slightly dropped to 9.43 per cent from 10.21 per cent on the previous day. The cumulative positivity was 4.66 per cent.
Forty eight deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 11,283. On Saturday, 39 deaths were reported from the city.
The new cases exceeded the daily recoveries by a big margin in the last 24 hours. A total of 5,158 patients recovered from the deadly disease, taking the total recovery figure to 6,79,573 in the national capital. The active cases increased by 5,568 in the national capital. The total number of active cases rose to 34,341 from 28,773 a day before.
As far as vaccination drive is concerned, a total of 1,04,86 people received vaccines in the last 24 hours. A total of 91,099 people received the first dose of the vaccine whereas 13,763 people received their second dose. So far, 20,70,868 persons have received vaccines in the national capital.
Out of the total 11,675 beds in coronavirus hospitals, 5,459 are vacant. The tally of people in home isolation jumped to 17,093 from 15,266 on Saturday.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal declared this as a serious situation and asked people to be careful against the deadly virus. “Today, in a 24-hour span, Delhi recorded 10,732 cases. This will be published in the health bulletin which will be released in the evening. This shows how rapidly Covid-19 has spread in the national capital. Till mid-March, Delhi was reporting less than 200 new cases of the infection in a 24-hour span. Yesterday, it recorded 7,897 new cases. Before that, the number was over 8,500,” Kejriwal said at a press conference.
However, the CM ruled out the possibility of a lockdown saying that it would only be imposed in case the hospital system collapses. Delhi is among the 10 states and union territories (UTs) where the coronavirus situation has deteriorated very fast. As per the health ministry, these states account for more than 80 per cent of new cases.
The situation has become unmanageable in the national capital as the positivity rates have been hovering around 10 per cent in the last two days. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), positivity rate of more than 5 per cent shows that the infection is becoming unmanageable.
On the other hand, the Delhi government is all set to begin collection of blood samples for the sixth round of serological survey to determine the change in the population-level prevalence of antibodies against Sar-CoV-2 between January and April. In the last survey, only 56 per cent of people were found to be exposed to the coronavirus. The samples were conducted between January 11 and 21.
