35 more COVID-19 deaths in Delhi take toll to 6,163; Jain alleges politics over plasma therapy

The national capital recorded 35 COVID-19 fatalities on Thursday, taking the death toll due to the disease to 6,163, while 3,882 fresh cases took the infection tally to over 3.44 lakh, authorities said.

These fresh cases resulted from the 58,770 tests conducted the previous day.

Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Thursday alleged that the Centre was "doing politics" over the issue of plasma therapy, and said it should rather do more research on it to help people.

"There should be no politics over this. Delhi has been taking a lead in the plasma therapy trials. I feel attempts being made to do politics over it, so that Delhi government doesn't get credit for its work," he claimed during a press conference.

A top ICMR official had said on Tuesday that the Centre was considering removing the convalescent plasma therapy from the national clinical management protocol for COVID-19.

A randomised controlled trial, led by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on 464 patients in 39 hospitals in 25 districts across 14 states and union territories has shown that plasma therapy does not reduce mortality or prevent progression of COVID-19 from moderate to severe, officials had said.

Thirty-five more fatalities have been recorded, taking the death toll to 6,163, according to Thursday's health bulletin issued by the government.

The tally of active cases on Thursday rose to 25,237 from 24,217 the previous day. The total number of cases has climbed to 3,44,318, the bulletin added.  The number of containment zones in Delhi increased to 2766 from 2,714 on Wednesday.

The positivity rate on Thursday stood at 6.61 per cent while the recovery rate was over 90 per cent, the bulletin said, adding, the case fatality rate stood at 1.79 per cent.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev took a review meeting with all district magistrates on the pandemic situation.

According to the bulletin, out of the total number of 15,742 beds in COVID hospitals, 10,626 are vacant.

It said 928 beds in COVID care centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned by Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights.

The Delhi government has significantly ramped up testing in the past few days, with the test count several times crossing the 60,000-mark.

The number of Rapid Antigen Tests conducted on Wednesday stood at 41,975 while the RT-PCR, CBNAAT and True NAAT tests figures were 16,795, in all adding to 58,770 according to the bulletin.

The number of tests done per million as on Thursday was over 2.21 lakh while the total number of tests stood at over 42 lakh.

The bulletin said 3,12,918 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far.

In September, the number daily cases had begun to rise in the city. From the last week of September, it had stated to come down a bit.

The number of people in home isolation rose to 14,979 compared to 14,227 the previous day.