Covid positivity rate ‘not low enough’ to relax curbs : Delhi Health Minister

New Delhi, January 19: Despite decline in COVID cases in Delhi, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Wednesday said that the COVID-19 positivity rate is not low enough to relax the Covid restrictions in the national capital.

Jain said, “The positivity rate has come down from 30 per cent to 22.5 per cent and the total number of cases in Delhi has also decreased. However, the positivity rate is not low enough that we can relax the Covid restrictions.”

Speaking further about the expectations for Covid cases in Delhi on Wednesday, he said,” Today around 24% positivity rate will come with around 13,000 COVID cases.”

Moreover, talking about hospitalisation & testing, he added that there is not much occupancy in hospitals & beds are also vacant and the Delhi government has also increased testing across Delhi.

The cases have reduced in the last five days. Delhi on Tuesday reported 11,684 cases with a positivity rate of 22.47% and 38 fatalities. Whereas on Monday the positivity rate in the city was 27.99% with 12,527 new cases.

A sharp decline of 6.72 per cent in the positivity rate was witnessed on Tuesday in comparison to Monday.

The total active caseload in the City is 78,112 as per state health bulletin on Tuesday.