Coronavirus situation improves in Delhi; low cases, death and home isolation counts falling

New Delhi: The COVID-19 situation in the national capital has improved in the last several days, with the low number of cases and reduction in death count, and the daily positivity rate staying below 5 per cent since December 3.

Delhi recorded 1,376 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday, the lowest in over three-and-a-half months, even as the death toll rose to 10,074 with 60 new fatalities. The number of cases and the single-day fatality count now indicate a marked improvement in the situation since the third wave of the pandemic had hit the city in November. The highest single-day spike 8,593 cases till date was reported on November 11. On November 18, 7,486 COVID-19 cases were recorded with 133 new fatalities, the highest single-day death count till date here. However, on December 13 only 33 fatalities were recorded, the lowest since September 21, when it stood at 32.

Though the absolute number of death cases have shown an intermittent rise, relatively, the fatalities have come down to much lower figures. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Sunday had tweeted that the national capital had the "least case fatality ratio at 1.6", compared to Ahmedabad's at 4, Mumbai at 3.8, Kolkata at 2 and Chennai at 1.8. "Cases are falling, and death count in a day is lowest in the last 40 days. The situation has improved and we can definitely say the third wave of the pandemic here is on the wane. It is not over but on the wane," he had said on December 10 when 50 fatalities were recorded. Soon after the third wave of the pandemic hit the national capital, daily cases had surged and containment zones count also kept mounting. The positivity rate which had stood at 8.23 per cent on October 26 had spiralled to 15.26 per cent on November 8.

However, since first week of November, the positivity rate has gradually fallen and the figure stood at 2.15 per cent on December 14, according to official data. Since December 3, the positivity rate in the national capital has gradually fallen, dropping to 2.74 per cent on December 13. From December 3-7, the figures stood at to 4.96 per cent, 4.78 per cent, 4.2 per cent, 3.68 per cent an 3.15 per cent, respectively. However, on December 8 it had risen again to 4.23 per cent, falling again to 3.42 per cent on December 9 and 2.46 per cent on December 10. It had risen to 3.33 per cent again on December 11 and fell again to 2.64 per cent on December 12. On falling positivity rate, Jain has been asserting that the national capital is "emerging victorious" in the battle against the coronavirus. The Monday's daily cases count of 1,376 was lowest August 31, when 1,358 cases were recorded.

The active cases tally on Monday also dropped to 15,247 from 16,785 the previous day. The Monday health bulletin said that the total number of cases had climbed to 6,08,830, while the recovery rate stood at over 95 per cent. A senior doctor at LNJP Hospital, a dedicated COVID-19 facility, said, "Doctors and government officials have worked in tandem to bring the situation to this state. Things look better at present compared to what we saw in June, September and November." Besides fall in active cases, the count of home isolation cases have also registered a sustained fall, dropping to below 10,000-mark on December 13, indicating an improvement in the COVID-19 situation. The number of home quarantined cases from late October had increased to 23,479 on November 26. The number has steadily fallen since then and it was reduced by more than half to 11,541 on December 10. The number of containment zones in Delhi has shown intermittent rise and fall in the last several days, with the figure standing at 6,433 on Monday.