Delhi Records 1,808 New COVID-19 Cases, Tally Over 1.69 Lakh

Delhi recorded 1,808 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, taking the tally in the city to over 1.69 lakh while the deaths due to the disease rose to 4,389, authorities said.

This is the second consecutive day when Delhi recorded over 1,800 new cases in August.

Twenty fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

On Thursday, 22 deaths were reported and the daily cases count was 1,840, the highest single-day spike in August till now.

The active cases tally on Friday rose to 13,550 from 13,208 the previous day.

So far, the highest single-day spike in the national capital was on June 23 when the city recorded 3,947 fresh cases.

The deaths due to COVID-19 in Delhi stood at 4,369 on Thursday.

The Friday bulletin said the deaths has risen to 4,389 and the total number of cases climbed to 1,69,412.

The positivity rate on Friday stood at 7.8 per cent while the recovery rate was over 89 per cent, as per the bulletin.

Also, on Friday, the number of containment zones jumped to 763 from 734 the previous day, according to the bulletin.

Fresh cases and active cases have shown an increase in the last several days, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday saying that COVID-19 tests in Delhi will be doubled to 40,000 per day within a week as there has been a marginal increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the city.

Delhi has seen a fluctuation in the number of coronavirus cases since the beginning of this month.

On August 1, the city recorded 1,118 fresh cases while for the next three days, the number of infections reported in a single-day stayed below the 1,000-mark.

From August 5 to August 9, the number of fresh COVID-19 cases again stayed above the 1,000-mark only to come down to 707 on August 10. Three days between August 11 and August 22, the city saw less than 1,000 fresh cases -- August 13 (956), August 16 (652), and August 17 (787).

According to the bulletin, out of the total number of beds in COVID hospitals, 10,234 are vacant.

Also, 4,135 beds in COVID care centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned by Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights, it said.

According to the bulletin, 1,51,473 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far.

The number of people in home isolation stands at 6,850.

The number of Rapid Antigen Tests conducted on Friday stood at 16,013 while the RT-PCR, CBNAAT and True NAAT tests figures were 6,920 in all adding 22,933, according to the bulletin.

The total number of tests done till date in Delhi stands at 15,26,655. The number of tests done per million, as on Friday was 80,350, it said.