Delhi Reports 1,313 New Covid Cases, Highest Single-day Spike Since May End

Delhi on Thursday crossed the 1,000-mark with 1,313 persons testing positive for Covid-19, the highest single-day record in 7 months -- a 42 per cent rise over the previous day's figures.

As the positivity rate jumped to 1.73 percent and new Omicron cases were detected with no travel history, MoH Satyendar Jain alerted the capital with Omicron¡¯s local transmission. No fresh deaths were reported in the city.

Cases through the week

On 26 May, the national capital had reported 1,491 cases with a positivity rate of 1.93 percent and 130 deaths.

On Wednesday, 923 cases were recorded in the city with a positivity rate of 1.29 percent. The positivity rate breached the one percent-mark after a gap of seven months. As many as 496 cases were recorded on Tuesday and 331 on Monday. The spike in daily cases in Delhi over the last few days comes amid a jump in Omicron cases in the city.

Reuters

Sudden surge in multiple cities

Thursday's spike came as the government wrote to eight states, urging them to take immediate measures to control the sudden surge in multiple cities. While Delhi and Mumbai have shown the maximum spike, numbers are showing an uptick in other cities. Gujarat's Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Surat have reported a sudden in Covid cases over the last two weeks.

Jharkhand's Ranchi, Karnataka's Bengaluru Urban, Haryana's Gurgaon, Tamil Nadu's Chennai, Maharashtra's Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Pune, Thane and Nagpur, and West Bengal's Kolkata have also reported a sudden and significant surge in the same period, the Centre has said.

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Centre advises strict measures

The Union health ministry has advised the states concerned to take immediate measures -- ramp up tests, trace contacts, ensure proper isolation or quarantine of people testing positive and speed up vaccination. It has also advised setting up containment zones and buffer zones and keeping hospitals and Covid centres ready for any emergency.

Stringent curbs have been put in place as part of the Graded Response Action Plan for COVID-19 to check the spread of the infection and the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will decide on implementing more restrictions, he added. The Delhi government has maintained that it has been preparing on a "war-footing" to handle the situation in face of the threat of a third wave of the pandemic.

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The second wave had wrecked havoc in the capital city and across the country. The Delhi government has set up a total of 350 isolation beds at four places, including at the Commonwealth Games village, for international travellers, their contacts and Omicron cases, according to an official order on Thursday.

A total of 75,953 tests -- 68,590 RT-PCR tests and 7,363 rapid antigen tests -- were conducted a day ago, the Thursday bulletin said. The number of people under home isolation stood at 1,560 on Thursday while it was 1,068 a day before, and the number of containment zones in the city stood at 645 a significant jump from 502 on Wednesday, the bulletin said.