Delhi sees over 7,000 daily Covid-19 cases for first time, tally at 423,831

There have been 6121 recoveries/discharges/migrations and the active cases of the coronavirus disease stand at 39,722, the health department’s bulletin showed.

Delhi on Friday reported 7,178 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the highest in a single day, and 64 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the health department’s bulletin. With this, the national capital’s tally rose to 423,831, including 6,833 deaths, data showed.

There have been 6121 recoveries/discharges/migrations and the active cases of the coronavirus disease stand at 39,722. Several indicators show that Delhi is in the grip of its third and worst wave of coronavirus infections yet. In the past week, there were 5,843 cases on average every day, the highest this number has been since the first case was recorded on March 2.

Thursday’s bulletin showed that 66 people lost their lives due to the viral infection, which was the highest single-day deaths in over four months, in the national capital. Delhi last recorded 66 deaths on June 27, at a time when treatment protocols for Covid-19 were still being assessed. Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan after a review of the situation in Delhi most of the new cases of Covid-19 are being reported from six districts of North, Central, North East, East, North West and South East, where the positivity rate stands between 12% and 14%. Delhi’s average seven-day positivity rate currently stands at 11.5%, as against the national average of 4.3%.

Deaths and hospitalisations have also been rapidly climbing in the Capital. As on Thursday, there were over 38,000 people with active infections in the city. Of them, 7,231 patients were admitted to hospitals, the data shows. This is the highest hospitalisations at a given time the city has seen.

Data shows that intensive care unit (ICU) beds are running full in city hospitals, especially those at private hospitals. Over 73.5% of all the ICU beds earmarked for the treatment of Covid-19 in the city were occupied as on Thursday evening, according to the ‘Delhi Corona’ app.

Amid the rising cases of the coronavirus disease, Delhi High Court on Thursday criticised the city government saying it has gone “completely haywire” over its handling of the Covid-19 outbreak and that Delhi was on its way to becoming the “corona capital of the country”.

“Delhi government has gone completely haywire on the pandemic and is soon going to become the corona capital of the country thanks to the number of cases shooting up. Many claims were made by the Delhi government that they are topping charts in testing, but the number of cases has overshot. The government has many answers to give us,” a bench of justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad said on Thursday.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday the third wave of the coronavirus infections will end soon just like the previous two as he urged Delhiites to make wearing mask a movement to arrest the spread of Covid-19 amid festive season and rising air pollution.