Delhi govt extends lockdown by a week

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said that the ongoing lockdown in Delhi has been extended till May 24.

During a visit to a hospital in the city, the chief minister said Delhi has recorded a “good level” of Covid-19 recoveries in the past few days and the number of cases is also reducing “very fast”.

“But we do not want the gains made in the past few days to be lost all of a sudden. So, the lockdown is being extended for another week till 5 am on May 24,” Kejriwal said.

On April 19, a weekend curfew in Delhi was turned into a full lockdown from the next day in the light of an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases in the capital which left the city’s health infrastructure creaking. Since then, this is the fourth time the lockdown has been extended. It was earlier supposed to end at 5 am on Monday, May 17.

For the past few days, Delhi has been witnessing a steady decline in Covid-19 infections.

However, the positivity rate still remains well above 5% -- a level considered relatively safe by the World Health Organisation.

“The recovery rate is going up. And the positivity rate is going down. In the last 24 hours, around 6,500 new cases have been recorded in Delhi and the positivity rate has dropped to 10% -- down from 11% the previous day. We cannot let our guards down now,” Kejriwal said.

“I hope there will be more recoveries from Covid-19 in the