Seems third Covid-19 wave in Delhi has been brought under control: Kejriwal

Kejriwal said there was a time when Delhi had 45,000 active Covid-19 cases, which came down to nearly 12,000 on Saturday. He also said the current daily figure of about 90,000 Covid-19 tests per day in the city is not only the highest in the country, but is also one of the highest across the world.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said Delhi seems to have overcome the third wave of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal at a special session of the Delhi assembly on Thursday. (HT FILE PHOTO)

Addressing a digital press conference, Kejriwal said from a peak of around 8,600 fresh cases on a single day, Delhi’s corona situation seems to have “significantly” improved with only 1,133 new cases being reported in the last 24 hours. He also claimed that each and every Covid-19 test conducted in Delhi is genuine and no “fraud” was done, as reported in some other states.

“There was a time in November when of every 100 persons tested for Covid-19, over 15 people used to test positive. The positivity rate back then was 15.26%. Today, the positivity rate has come down to 1.3%. This is probably the lowest in the country. In today’s health bulletin, which will be released shortly, the total tests done in 24 hours was 87,000,” he said.

Kejriwal further said there was a time when Delhi had 45,000 active Covid-19 cases, which came down to nearly 12,000 on Saturday. The recovery rate of the city is nearly 96.5%. On November 19, Delhi recorded the highest number of fatalities with 131 deaths in a single day. On Saturday, the number of Covid-19 deaths in as single day was 36.

The Delhi chief minister said the current daily figure of about 90,000 Covid-19 tests per day in the city is not only the highest in the country, but is also one of the highest across the world.

“Today, Delhi is conducting 4,500 tests per million population every day. Uttar Pradesh is testing only 670 people per million daily. Gujarat is testing 850 people per million every day. In the USA, 4,300 tests per million are being conducted every day. England is testing more than Delhi, with 4,800 tests per million,” Kejriwal said.

He reiterated that Delhi was the first in the world to introduce the home isolation system, which reduced the load on the city’s hospitals manifold. He cited example of New York city of how despite having around 5,600 cases per day the city had patients lying in hospital corridors for want of treatment. Kejriwal said that even when Delhi had 8,600 cases on a single day, the city had over 7,000 beds vacant for Covid. He also recalled how Delhi was the first to start plasma therapy which helped keep the number of deaths low.