3 more Delhi residents test positive for UK variant of coronavirus

Three more Delhi residents have tested positive for the new coronavirus strain as a result of door-to-door medical check up of people who have recently arrived from the United Kingdom and those who came in their contact in the city, an official said on Monday.

With this, seven residents of the national capital have so far been found infected with the new coronavirus variant that has emerged in the UK. At present, 51 people, including those who recently returned from the UK and their contacts, have so far tested positive for COVID-19 and all have been kept in separate isolation facility at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) Hospital. Out of these 51, samples of 35 were sent to laboratories for genome sequencing, of which reports of 21 have arrived, officials said.

Earlier, seven UK returnees had been found infected with the new strain, four having addresses in Delhi and rest in other places. According to a report shared by the Centre on Monday, a total of 38 people have been found infected with the new strain of the virus till date in the country. Among them, 11 people have tested positive with the new strain at CSIR's Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), and eight samples tested at NCDC, both in Delhi.

Meanwhile, a separate 32-room isolation unit has been set up at Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital to quarantine UK returnees who have tested positive for COVID-19, sources said. Interacting with reporters on December 29, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said, a total of 38 people had been found positive since coming to Delhi from the UK recently, and kept in a separate institutional isolation unit on the LNJP Hospital premises.

Delhi recorded 384 fresh COVID-19 cases, the lowest in over seven months, and 12 new fatalities on Monday, even as the positivity rate stood at 0.76 per cent, authorities said. The infection tally in the city rose to over 6.27 lakh and death toll mounted to 10,597, they said.