Delhi breaches 1k+ single-day rise for 5th time in 6 days

NEW DELHI: The Capital reported 1,298 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases reported in the city so far to 22,312, as per the Delhi government’s daily health bulletin.

The number of new cases shot up again after a slight dip on Monday, when Delhi added 990 patients to its tally.

The number of people facing severe symptoms and in need of ventilator support also shot up as compared to Monday. On Tuesday, 92 people were put on ventilator support, as compared to 42 the previous day.

This means, of the 12,573 active cases in the city, 0.7% needed to be put on the ventilator. This is a shade higher than the national average of 0.48% that Delhi had been mimicking so far.

Over 22% active cases are currently admitted to Covid-designated hospitals with severe symptoms such as respiratory distress and oxygen saturation below 90% (normal is between 95 to 100%).

Delhi also tested more samples on Tuesday than on Monday — 6,070 on Tuesday, as compared to 4,753 on Monday.

On an average, 6,539 samples have being processed on a daily basis since Delhi started recording over 1,000 cases a day, higher than the daily average of 4,868 samples that were being processed the week before.

Not only has the number of tests gone up, the positivity rate — the percentage of people testing positive among those tested — has also shot up to over 20% in the last three days.

This means one in five people tested in the city, turn out to be positive for Covid-19.

As per national guidelines, only those with Covid-like symptoms or high-risk contact of a laboratory-confirmed case are tested for the infection.

On Tuesday, 33 more deaths were added to the cumulative total after review by the threemember death audit committee. Of these, 11 took place on May 31, and were confirmed by the committee on Monday. The earliest of the other deaths dates back to April 19.