The daily COVID-19 positivity rate in the national capital is expected be less than 1 per cent, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said as fresh coronavirus infections in Delhi fell below the 1,000-mark over the last two days.
“This (1 per cent) could be the lowest positivity rate in the entire country,” Mr Jain told days after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the city’s third wave of coronavirus infections seems to have passed.
For the last four days, Delhi’s average positivity rate has been around 1.5 per cent – the same as the national average. The figure dipped to 1.14 per cent with 939 new cases on Tuesday.
A day earlier on Monday, 803 fresh infections were logged with an infection rate of 1.29 per cent. While the daily cases were lowest since August 15, the positivity rate was lowest in eight months, he had said.
Urging people to continue to continue to stay cautious amid fears of a new strain, more aggressive strain of coronavirus, Mr Jain said, “Wear a mask and take precautions. Mask offers safety.”
Amid its third and most severe wave of coronavirus infections last month, Delhi logged its highest daily infections at 8,600 on November 10. The month also saw at least 2,600 Covid-related deaths as the positivity rate had gone up to 15.26 per cent
The active cases, which were around 45,000 in November, are now down to about 8,700.
“The daily average test count falls in the region of 90,000 in Delhi… I can say that all our tests figures are genuine,” said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday, adding that the situation in Delhi has improved significantly since early November.
Last month, amid fears of a spike in cases amid elections and festivals, the centre had reiterated that states must target to bring down overall Covid positivity to under 5 per cent and death rate to under 1 per cent.
After hitting a peak of nearly 98,000 daily cases in mid-September, daily infections in India have dropped around 20,000 this month when COVID-19 infections are rising across countries in Europe and the Americas.
Delhi has a total of 6.18 lakh COVID-19 cases with 10,329 deaths so far.
