Delhi records 9 Covid deaths in December; highest in last 4 months: Data

Nine COVID-19 deaths have been reported in Delhi in December so far this year, the highest count of fatalities due to coronavirus infection in the last four months in the national capital, according to official data.

Delhi had recorded seven deaths due to Covid in November, four in October and five in September.

The city on December 30 recorded 1,313 fresh Covid cases, the highest single-day rise since May 26, while the positivity rate mounted to 1.73 per cent, according to the data shared by the health department.

No fresh fatality was reported in the city on Thursday.

On December 27 and December 28, one death each due to the infection was registered, according to official figures.

The number of cumulative cases on Monday stood at 14,46,415. Over 14.18 lakh patients have recovered from the infection, as per the latest bulletin.

The death toll due to the coronavirus infection in Delhi stood at 25,098 by the end of November, which has risen to 25,107 till December 30, as per official data.

The solitary death recorded on December 28 was the ninth fatality due to coronavirus infection, reported in December. Eight other deaths were reported prior to it in the last month of 2021, amid a scare of Omicron variant of Covid.

India logged 309 fresh Omicron infections, taking the total tally of such cases in the country to 1,270, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Friday.

The 1,270 cases have been detected across 23 states and UTs so far, and 374 people have recovered or migrated. Maharashtra recording the maximum number of 450 cases followed by Delhi at 320, Kerala 109 and Gujarat 97.

In July, the last time zero death was recorded was on July 29 when 51 cases were reported with a positivity rate of 0.08 per cent, according to official figures.

In August too, the last time nil fatality was recorded was on August 29 when 31 cases were logged.

Daily case count had dropped to 17 on September 13, with no death being recorded that day, while the positivity rate stood at 0.04 per cent, according to official data.

Delhi had reeled under a brutal second wave of the pandemic that swept the country early 2021, claiming a massive number of lives daily, and the oxygen supply shortage issue at various hospitals had added to the woes.

Since April 19, both daily cases and single-day deaths count had spiralled up in Delhi, with over 28,000 cases and 277 deaths recorded on April 20; rising to 306 fatalities on April 22. On May 3, the city registered a record 448 deaths, as per the official data.

However, the number of cases had shown a downward trend and the positivity rate too had been shrinking from June, though death cases continued to be reported in subsequent months.

However, in the last one week, the coronavirus cases have surged in a big way.

On December 18, the city had recorded 86 cases with a positivity rate of 0.13 per cent.  The daily cases count breached the 1,000-mark after a gap of seven months. On May 28, the city had logged 1,141 cases A total of 75,953 tests -- 68,590 RT-PCR tests and 7,363 rapid antigen tests -- were conducted a day ago, the bulletin said.  The number of people under home isolation stood at 1,560 on Thursday while it was 1,068 a day before, and the number of containment zones in the city stood at 645 a significant jump from 502 on Wednesday, the bulletin said.