Delhi: At 16, lowest single-day Covid toll in 114 days

NEW DELHI: Delhi reported 757 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. Sunday was the sixth in the past week when the daily count of cases remained below the 1,000-mark. Sunday also saw 16 deaths, the lowest in 114 days.

The latest number of positive cases emerged from 75,210 tests conducted, including 40,742 RT-PCR tests, with a positivity rate of 1%. Saturday and Friday had recorded a positivity rate below 1%. Barring Thursday, when 1,063 cases were reported, the week has witnessed the number of fresh cases remaining below 1,000.

The last time Delhi recorded less than 16 fatalities in a day was on September 4, when 13 deaths were reported. While the number of new cases have been dipping since November 20, barring very few exceptions, every day the number of people recovering from Covid-19 has been higher than people testing positive. The death rate, however, has been a cause of concern but even the fatalities are slowly coming down.

This month has already recorded 1,279 deaths, which is much lower than the 2,663 deaths caused by Covid-19 in November, the highest till date. However, the total fatalities this month has already surpassed the number of deaths recorded in any month since the first death recorded on March 13, barring the exception of June, which saw the first wave of Covid-19 cases and total 2,269 deaths. December has already recorded more Covid-19 fatalities than July (1,221), October (1,150) and September (917). The months of August and May saw less than 500 deaths.

While the total number of deaths in December are on the higher side, the numbers are dipping and compared with two weeks ago on December 13, when the average number of deaths per day was 64.6, the average deaths has come down to 47.4, which is much lower than the 88.7 average of November or 75.6 average of June.

The total number of Covid-19 positive cases reached the figure of 6,22,851 on Sunday and with 939 patients recovering from the disease in the last 24 hours, the total number of those who have recovered stands at 6,05,685 – a recovery rate of 97.2%.

The number of active Covid-19 cases as on Sunday was 6,713, out of which most patients – 3,335 – are recuperating in home isolation.