Delhi's daily Covid-19 cases rise again, nearly 50% surge since Tuesday

New Delhi: Delhi on Wednesday recorded 299 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours – a rise of almost 50 per cent since Tuesday when it had reported 202 infections. While no death due to the disease was reported, the daily positivity rate has jumped up to 2.9 per cent.

With this, the national capital's caseload has increased to 18,66,881.

The national capital has seen an uptick in cases in the last few days after recording a steady decline over the last two months.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said the city government is keeping a watchful eye on the situation and there is no reason to worry until a new variant of concern is detected. "The daily cases in Delhi are being reported in the range of 100-200. We are keeping an eye on hospital admissions and they are going down. The focus shouldn't be on positivity rate much as of now," he said.

The number of daily COVID-19 cases in Delhi had touched the record high of 28,867 on January 13 this year during the third wave of the pandemic.

The city had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 per cent on January 14, the highest during the third wave of the pandemic which was largely driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The national capital recently did away with fines for not wearing a mark in public places after a decline in Covid cases. While the Delhi Disaster Management Authority did not officially say masks were no longer mandatory, the removal of the ₹ 500 fine has effectively made masks - widely considered an important measure to stem the spread of the virus - optional.

While being critical of the city government's recent move to remove the mask mandate, Dr Richa Sareen, consultant of pulmonology at Fortis Hospital said it was not a "static decision" and if the situation warrants, the rules can again be changed.Ya