Delhi on Wednesday recorded 10,665 coronavirus cases – a 94.58% jump from Tuesday’s count of 5,481 infections. With this, the the infection tally in the national Capital climbed to 14,74,366 since the pandemic broke out in January 2020.
The daily positivity rate also increased to 11.88% on Wednesday from 8.37% a day ago. The toll climbed to 25,121 after eight people died due the infection.
Earlier in the day, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said that the city was likely to report about 10,000 cases and that the the daily positivity rate was also expected to rise to nearly 10%.
The third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has set in in India, Jain had said, according to NDTV. “For Delhi, it is the fifth wave,” the health minister added.
Delhi has been witnessing an alarming rise in coronavirus cases over the last few days. The rapid increase is seen amid the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus disease.
On Monday, Jain had said that the Omicron variant was now the dominant strain of infections in the city. He said that 81.28% of the coronavirus cases in the Capital in the last few days were of the Omicron variant.
On Wednesday, Jain said genome sequencing of all Covid-19 samples was not possible currently and only 300-400 such samples were being sequenced, reported PTI. Genome sequencing is being done to ascertain the variant of Covid-19.
Delhi has so far detected 464 Omicron cases, according to the Union health ministry’s update on Wednesday.
Jain said that the Delhi government has instructed private hospitals to increase the number of reserved beds for coronavirus patients to 40% from 10% of their capacity. He said about 2% of beds in government hospitals were occupied.
Data on Delhi’s health bulletin showed that only 782 of 10,474 beds were occupied. As many as 11,151 patients were in home isolation.
The health minister had said that the coronavirus testing in the city has increased. Data showed that 89,742 tests were conducted in the city on Wednesday.
In view of the rising cases, the Delhi government has imposed a weekend curfew in the city. Under the new guidelines, government employees, except those engaged in essential services, will be asked to work from home, while private offices will function at 50% capacity.
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