Delhi reports 13,785 Covid cases, positivity rate at 23.86%

Death due to Covid-19 meanwhile dropped in the last 24 hours, with 35 people succumbing to infection on Wednesday, as against 38 on Tuesday

Breaking the downward trend of the last two days, the number of Covid-19 cases in Delhi rose slightly on Wednesday, recording 13,785 new infections out of the 57,776 total tests conducted.

Senior officials of the Delhi government’s health department said that the rise in cases is not significant. “The rise should not be read as a spike. Our focus is on hospitalisations which is still stable,” the official said. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

The Capital saw 11,684 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday and 12,527 cases on Monday.

The rise in new infections also reflected in a minor increase in the positivity rate, which rose from 22.47% on Tuesday to 23.86% on Wednesday. The positivity rate was 27.99% on Monday.

Death due to Covid-19 meanwhile dropped in the last 24 hours, with 35 people succumbing to infection on Wednesday, as against 38 on Tuesday.

Senior officials of the Delhi government’s health department said that the rise in cases is not significant. “The rise should not be read as a spike. Our focus is on hospitalisations which is still stable,” the official said.

On Wednesday, 2,734 (17.52%) beds out of the total 15,603 in Covid hospitals were occupied, leaving 12,869 hospital beds vacant.

Curiously, the number of Covid patients in home isolation has been consistently going down over the last four days. From 68,411 patients in home isolation on January 16, the count reduced to 68,275 on January 17, before suddenly dropping to 63,432 on January 18 and finally 58,501 on January 19. Health officials attributed this decline in home isolation cases to a shorter infection period among patients in home care.

“Unlike Delta wave, when the patients were taking 12-14 days to recover, in Omicron infections, patients are taking fewer days to recover,” the health official said.