Capital adds 1,954 cases; highest one-day virus spike since July 10

SATURDAY’S BULLETIN RECORDED 22,004 TESTS, OF WHICH 6,597 WERE RT-PCR TESTS

nNEW DELHI: Delhi on Saturday recorded 1,954 new cases of Covid-19 – the highest single-day jump since July 10, when 2,089 cases were recorded, taking the cumulative number of infections in the city to 171,366. Delhi, which had seemingly turned a corner in its fight against the infection, has seen a steady rise in the number of cases, after a lull towards the end of July, till mid-august. In the past seven days, the national capital has added an average of 1,621 cases of the infection, the most since mid-july.

While a total of 152,922 people have recovered from the disease in the city, Saturday’s health bulletin —issued by the Delhi government — also recorded 15 new deaths, taking the toll in the city to 4,404.

To be sure, even though the case count in the city seems to be on an upward trajectory, deaths have mostly remained stable this month. As on Saturday, the city has added a daily average of 17 deaths in the past seven days, significantly lower than the fatalities Delhi was adding at the peak in mid-june. At that point, the city, for a week, recorded a daily seven-day average of over 70 deaths a day.

Earlier this week, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the infection figures in the city had witnessed a spike since August 17, following which he directed for stricter enforcement of safety guidelines and the number of tests to be doubled – to around 40,000 per day.

Saturday’s health bulletin recorded 22,004 tests, of which 6,597 were the gold standard RT-PCR tests and the rest were rapid antigen tests.

At least 212 containment zones in the city were notified in the last seven days — taking the total to 803 as on Saturday. Senior government officials said that clusters have surfaced in several locations, for which a large number of containment zones were created across the city.

As on Saturday, southwest district has the highest number of containment zones (162), followed by west Delhi (113), north

Delhi (110) and south Delhi (102), government records showed.

Medical experts warned that people must continue following safety norms, such as wearing masks and maintaining hand hygiene.

“Yes, there has been an increase in the number of cases being reported daily, but it is not alarming. We are also not reporting extremely high number of hospitalisations or deaths as it happened in June. So, its not a cause of worry. Plus, the government is well prepared and the infrastructure is in place. That said, people should continue following the general precautions like wearing mask and washing hands frequently,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, head of the department of community medicine at Safdarjung hospital.