COVID-19: Delhi records highest spike in cases in Aug; death count 4,330

Delhi recorded 1,544 fresh coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the city's highest single-day spike in August till date, taking the tally to over 1.64 lakh, while the death toll from the disease mounted to 4,330, authorities said.

The positivity rate on Tuesday stood at 7.7 per cent while the recovery rate was over 90 per cent, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department. Seventeen fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours, it said. On Monday, the daily cases count was 1,061 and 13 deaths were reported.

The active cases tally on Tuesday rose to 11,998 from 11,626 the previous day.  On June 23, the national capital had registered the highest single-day spike of 3,947, till date. The death toll from COVID-19 in Delhi stood at 4,313 on Monday. The Tuesday bulletin said the death toll from the coronavirus infection has risen to 4,330 and the total number of cases climbed to 1,64,071. Monday's fresh daily cases count at 1,544 is the highest in this month till date. The previous highest single-day spike in cases in August was on Sunday at 1,450. Delhi has seen a fluctuation in the number of novel coronavirus cases since the beginning of this month.

On August 1, the city recorded 1,118 fresh cases while for the next three days, the number of infections reported in a single-day stayed below the 1,000-mark.

From August 5 to 9, the number of fresh COVID-19 cases again stayed above the 1,000-mark only to come down to 707 on August 10.

Three days between August 11 and August 22, the city saw less than 1,000 fresh cases - August 13 (956), August 16 (652), and August 17 (787).  Medical experts on Tuesday conjectured that the rise in the number of daily cases in the national capital in the last few days could be attributed to patients from outside Delhi coming here to seek treatment, reopening of the economy and low sensitivity of rapid antigen tests.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Secretory Vijay Dev took a meeting with Principal Secretary (Home), Principal Secretary (Health), divisional commissioner, health secretary, DGHS, all district magistrates, deputy commissioner of police and chief district medical officers to review the COVID-19 situation.

According to the bulletin, out of the total number of beds in COVID hospitals, 10,512 are vacant. Also, 3,493 beds in COVID care centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned by the Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights, it said.

According to the bulletin, 1,47, 743 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far. The number of people in home isolation stands at 5,949. The number of Rapid Antigen Tests conducted on Tuesday stood at 14,462 while the RT-PCR, CBNAAT and True NAAT tests figures were 5,380, in all adding to 19,841, according to the bulletin. The total number of tests done till date in Delhi stands at 14,62,845. The number of tests done per million, as on Tuesday was 76,991, it said. On Tuesday, the number of containment zones stood at 654.