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Active Covid cases below 1k in Delhi for first time since April 2020
The health bulletin on Sunday showed that Delhi currently has 992 active Covid-19 cases, less than 1/100th of the number at the peak of the fourth wave of infections on April 28, when 99,752 in the city were battling the viral disease.
Fewer than 1,000 people in the national capital are currently battling the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the first time Delhi’s active case count has dropped below that mark since the early days of the pandemic in April last year, showed the state government’s daily health bulletin, marking an important landmark for the city in its turnaround since the devastating fourth wave of infections less than two months ago.
The health bulletin on Sunday showed that Delhi currently has 992 active Covid-19 cases, less than 1/100th of the number at the peak of the fourth wave of infections on April 28, when 99,752 in the city were battling the viral disease.
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The city last saw fewer than 1,000 cases in the second week of April last year.
The Capital also added 94 fresh Covid-19 infections on Sunday, the fourth day in a row that the city recorded fewer than 100 infections. Over the past week, Delhi added an average of 89 new Covid-19 cases each day, showed government data.
The turnaround in the city’s fight against Covid-19 comes just around two months after a brutal surge of infections between April and May this year, when over 760,000 contracted the infection, and more than 13,000 succumbed to it. The surge left health infrastructure overrun, medical workers overwhelmed, and led to crematoriums running out of space.
At the peak of the April-May surge, the Covid-19 test positivity rate — the proportion of test samples that return positive — touched 36.24%. Experts regard the test positivity rate as a crucial metric to gauge the spread of an infection in a region,.
This number has dropped consistently since the first week of May this year, and has now been below 1% for 35 days, and below 5% for 45 days.
Meanwhile, seven people died of the infection. An average of four people died of Covid-19 each day in the city over the past week, said government records.
Dr Jugal Kishore, head of community medicines department in Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital, said: “It is good that active cases have finally dropped below 1,000. However, there is something concerning. For more than a week now, the number of new cases surfacing each day is swinging between 85-100 and not dropping below that. In shows that transmission of the virus is continuing in some pockets. This may need some specific strategies. We need to bring it down to zero new cases to be in a safe zone.”
