Delhi records over 115,000 new Covid-19 cases in 6 days as lockdown nears end

Between May 3 and May 8, Delhi registered a total of 115,285 new coronavirus cases and 2,105 deaths, as per the health department’s bulletin. The lockdown, unless extended for a third time, will end in the early morning hours of Monday.

The ongoing lockdown in Delhi, which was announced by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on April 19 to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), will end in the early morning hours of Monday, unless extended for a third time. The lockdown came into force at 10pm on the very day it was announced, and was originally scheduled to end at 5am on April 26. However, subsequently, it witnessed two week-long extensions, as announced by CM Kejriwal on April 25 and May 1 respectively.

Representative Image (HT Photo)

Here's a look at the Capital’s Covid-19 numbers thus far from this week, a day before the lockdown's scheduled end. The Delhi government will release figures from the last 24 hours later in the day.

(1.) From May 3-8, Delhi saw more than 20,000 fresh infections only once, 20,960 cases on May 5. Throughout the previous week, the city’s Covid-19 tally rose by more than 20,000 cases per day.

(2.) The current week began with 18,043 infections on May 3. On May 4,6, 7 and 8, there were 19,953, 19,133, 19,832 and 17,364 cases respectively. Overall, in six days thus far, Delhi’s Covid-19 tally has risen by 115,285 cases or an average of more than 19,000 cases a day.

(3.) In comparison, from April 26-May 1, there were 146,837 cases in total or more than 24,000 cases in a day, on average. Additionally, last week’s tally increased by 20,394 cases on May 2.

(4.) The number of samples tested in five of these six days has been more than 70,000, except on 61,045 on May 3. This was also the day that the positivity rate, or the number of samples testing positive of the total samples tested in the preceding 24 hours, was at its highest this week, at 29.56%. From May 4-8, the positivity rate stood at 26.73%, 26.37%, 24.29%, 24.92% and 23.34%. In all, 447,947 tests have been conducted this week thus far.

(5.) Related fatalities recorded on each day have been 448, 338, 311, 335, 341 and 332 or 2,105 deaths in total. The week also has also seen 117,563 recoveries. The cumulative infection tally stands at 1,310,231 including 1,203,253 recoveries, 87,907 active cases and 19,071 deaths.

(6.) As per the latest bulletin by the health department, issued on May 8, the number of beneficiaries vaccinated thus far stands at 3,746,494. Of these, 2,924,708 have been vaccinated with the first dose, while 821,786 have received both the doses. CM Kejriwal has said if Delhi could get 8-8.5 million vaccine doses every month, then the whole city could be vaccinated in the set target of three months.