Delhi Is Slowly Curbing Spread Of COVID-19 As Daily Infection Rate Drops To 3-month Low
A total of 1,575 new COVID-19 cases and 61 fatalities were reported in the national capital in the past 24 hours on Thursday.
The total count of cases has gone up to 6,01,150 cases which include 18,753 active cases.
The positivity rate, which had crossed 15% in mid-November when the city was reporting more than 7,000 cases a day, fell to 2.5%.?
Recoveries cross 5.7 lakh
According to a health bulletin by the Delhi government, 3,307 people also recovered from the virus in the last 14 hours taking the total number of recoveries to 5,72,523.
The death toll has gone up to 9,874 with 61 fatalities in the past 24 hours, an increase of 11 from the 50 fatalities on Wednesday, which was the lowest number of deaths in a single day since November 1.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain had tweeted that it was heartening to see that the national capital is "emerging victorious" in the battle against the coronavirus.
"Cases are falling, and death count in a day is lowest in the last 40 days. The situation has improved, and we can definitely say the third wave of the pandemic here is on the wane. It is not over, but on the wane," he said.
He reiterated that the overall positivity rate is less than 5 per cent for the last seven days.
The drop in the number of new infections is welcome news for the national capital, where experts had warned that COVID-19 cases will spike in December following the festival season.
The fall in active cases has brought much-needed relief for hospitals that were overwhelmed with patients till about a fortnight ago.?
Beds available in hospitals
According to the Health Minister over 13,000 beds are available for COVID-19 patients in Delhi, which is "not there in any city of the country", adding that 2,500 ICU beds are also available for them.
When asked about non-COVID-19 patients needing Intensive care unit (ICU) beds, he said, "We will review the situation. But ICU beds can't be managed overnight, if cases suddenly increase. So, we have to see the trend stabilise first".
On plans of COVID-19 vaccination, he said, healthcare workers and frontline staff will be administered the vaccine first, followed by the elderly and then others.
"If we have vaccine availability, we can vaccinate the entire population in a week's time, we have the preparations ready," he added.
Asked how many people have registered for the COVID-19 vaccine, he said, about two lakh till Wednesday.
