1,544 new cases on Tuesday mark a 40-day high for Delhi

DurgeshNandan.Jha

New Delhi: In a worrying indication that the Covid-19 outbreak in Delhi was far from over, the health department reported 1,544 new cases on Tuesday, the highest daily count in the capital in 40 days.

Delhi had last reported a higher single-day surge on July 16, when 1,652 fresh cases were recorded. Since then, daily cases had stayed under 1,500, even dipping to a low of 613 on July 27, till Tuesday’s tally was announced.

Another pointer to a possible rise in infections is the city’s positivity rate — the percentage of positive cases out of the total samples tested. The positivity rate, which had reduced to less than 6%, again rose to 8.9% and 7.7% on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. This is also an indication that Delhi needs to again ramp up the number of daily tests, which have fallen in recent days. Active cases in the city, which had dropped below 10,000 earlier this month, have again risen to nearly 12,000, at 11,998.