Delhi reports 14 more COVID-19 deaths, 1,412 fresh cases

Delhi recorded 1,412 fresh coronavirus cases on Saturday, the city's biggest single-day spike in infections this month, bringing the infection tally to over 1.60 lakh while the death toll rose to 4,284, authorities said.

Fourteen more fatalities linked to the novel coronavirus were recorded in the last 24 hours, they said. According to the Delhi government's health bulletin, a total of 19,435 tests -- 6,090 RTPCR/CBNAAT/TrueNat tests and 13,345 rapid antigen tests -- have been conducted in the last 24 hours.

So far 14,12,363 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in Delhi while the number of tests per million population stands at 74,334 in the city. The positivity rate stands at 7.26 per cent while the recovery rate is 90.07 per cent.

Delhi has seen a fluctuation in the number of coronavirus cases since August 1. On August 1, the number of cases was 1,118 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 August 9, the number of fresh COVID-19 cases again stayed above the 1,000 mark only to come down to 707 on August 10. As many as 1,404 cases were recorded on August 8, the previous highest single-day spike of August.

Three days between August 11 and August 22 saw less than 1,000 fresh cases being reported -- August 13 (956), August 16 (652), and August 17 (787).

With the 1,412 new cases, the tally has now risen to 1,60,016, the Saturday's health bulletin said.

The active case count stands at 11,594, up from 11,426 the previous day, while 1,44,138 patients have either recovered from the infection, been discharged or have migrated out of the city, according to the bulletin. The number of patients in home isolation is 5,791.

Out of 14,124 total beds in hospitals, 3,600 are occupied. As many as 3,597 beds of COVID Care Centres are occupied by people under quarantine including travellers who came by Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights.

The number of containment zones stands at 591 in Delhi.

In a related development, an order has been issued for winding up healthcare facilities operating in banquet halls in linkage with the designated COVID hospitals of the Delhi government.

On Friday, Delhi had recorded 1,250 new COVID-19 cases, which took the caseload to 1,58,604 while the death toll rose to 4270 with 13 more fatalities.