Delhi records 17 Covid deaths, daily cases over 22,000

The city added 22,751 cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, said the health department’s daily bulletin, the most cases in a day since May 1 last year, when Delhi logged over 25,000 fresh infections days after the peak of the fourth wave.

Seventeen people in Delhi died of Covid-19 on Saturday, according to state government data, the most single-day fatalities of the infection in over 200 days, while the daily case count jumped past 22,000, even as a majority of patients in the Capital continue to recover at home, without needing a hospital bed.

The Covid-19 death toll on Saturday was the highest in a single day since June 16 last year, when 25 people in the city succumbed to the infection. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

The city added 22,751 cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, said the health department’s daily bulletin, the most cases in a day since May 1 last year, when Delhi logged over 25,000 fresh infections days after the peak of the fourth wave.

Of the 96,678 tests conducted on Saturday, 23.53% samples returned positive results. This statistic went past the 20% mark for the first time since May 9 last year, and is now at its highest level since May 7, when this number was just short of 25%.

Over 60,000 people in Delhi are currently battling Covid-19.

The Covid-19 death toll on Saturday was the highest in a single day since June 16 last year, when 25 people in the city succumbed to the infection.

However, hospitalisation figures continue to remain low, with the city’s health infrastructure left with plenty of headroom, even as the Covid-19 caseload returns to levels last seen over seven months ago. Nearly 88% of all hospital beds in Delhi were vacant as on Saturday, according to state government data. The city, at present, has over 14,000 beds reserved for Covid-19 patients, of which just 1,800 are occupied.

This is in line with trends across the world, which show that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus causes milder infections than Delta, and leads to far fewer hospitalisations.

Further, the Delhi government has previously said it can reserve 37,000 beds for Covid-19 patients, if the caseload necessitates it, a move that is part of a larger plan to augment the city’s bed capacity to 65,000.

Delhi’s fourth wave of infections, between April and May 2020, continues to be its most fatal and widespread. That surge was driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which pushed hospitals and health infrastructure to the brink, and left over 13,000 dead in that two-month period.