Delhi COVID tally mounts to over 1.29 L, death count 3,806; CM says active cases spot improved

The COVID-19 tally in the national capital on Saturday mounted to over 1.29 lakh and the death toll climbed to 3,806, even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asserted that Delhi now stands at the eighth spot in the country in terms of active cases.

Sharing a list of states with active number of coronavirus cases on Twitter, he said the situation was "bad" a few days ago, and Delhi was at the second spot in it.

He also said despite the improvement there was "no room for complacency" and urged people to take precautions.

"Delhi has reached 8th position in terms of number of active cases. Situation was bad till a few days back. We were at 2nd position. However, there is no room for complacency. Take precautions and stay safe," the chief minister tweeted.

The national capital recorded 1,142 fresh coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the city's tally to over 1.29 lakh, according to a health bulletin.

Meanwhile, Delhi Heath Minister Satyendar Jain said the daily positivity rate of the city currently stands at about 5 per cent.

The positivity rate on Saturday was 5.5 per cent. It stood at 5.3 per cent on Friday, the heath bulletin stated.

Also, the recovery rate on Saturday was about 87 per cent, it said.

Twenty-nine fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours, the bulleting added.

From July 11-19, fresh cases were being reported in the range of 1,000-2,000 consecutively. The number of fresh cases reported on July 19 stood at 1,211.

On June 20, the fresh cases count dipped to 954, and it increased the next day to 1,349.

Since Tuesday, the number of fresh cases have been recorded in excess of 1,000 again.

However, the active cases tally on Saturday was 12,657, down from 13,681, the previous day.  On June 23, the national capital had reported the highest single-day spike of 3,947, till date.

The death toll due to COVID-19 in Delhi stood at 3,777 on Friday, when 1,025 fresh cases were reported.

The bulletin said the death toll from the coronavirus infection has risen to 3,806 and the total number of cases climbed to 1,29,531.  Meanwhile, the Delhi government on Saturday augmented the total number of beds in COVID hospitals here by 450 with the partial opening of the Burari facility.

The newly-set up facility in north Delhi will have a total of 700 beds, out of which 450 beds have been made operational.

Chief Minister Kejriwal inaugurated the facility via video conferencing and said this will help in the fight against COVID-19.

According to the bulletin, the total number of beds in COVID hospitals stood at 15,475 out of which 12,340 are vacant.

After adding 450 more beds, the number has grown to 15,925.

The bulletin also said 2,787 of the total of 9,244 beds at various COVID care centres are occupied by people under quarantine, including travellers who came by the Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights.

Kejriwal, after inaugurating the facility, also said people of the city, his government and the Centre together have "attained victory over COVID-19 but the fight is not yet over".

Delhi Health Minister Jain, who was present at the hospital during the event, has been cautioning that novel coronavirus has an "unpredictable behaviour" and therefore "we cannot afford to lower our guard" even those daily cases count and positivity rate have come down.

According to the bulletin, 1,13,068 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far.

The number of people in home isolation stands at 7,339.

The number of Rapid Antigen Tests conducted on Saturday stood at 14,819 while the RT-PCR, CBNAAT and True NAAT tests figures were 5,690, in all adding to 20,509, the bulletin stated.

The total number of tests done till date in Delhi stands at 9,29,244.

The number of tests done per million, as on Saturday was 48,907, it said.

On Saturday, the number of containment zones stood at 704.

Image credits: PTI