Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday that the restrictions like weekend curfew would not be lifted at this stage because the Covid-19 positivity rate continued to be very high in the national capital.
Talking to media persons, the minister said though the single-day count of Covid-19 positive cases had been substantially coming down, the positivity rate on Tuesday was still over 22 per cent, too high to make the authorities think of relaxing the restrictions imposed.
He said, “The Covid-19 positivity rate decreased from 30.64 per cent on 15 January to 22.47 per cent on 18 January (Tuesday), but it is not as low as can make the authorities comfortable to relax the restrictions imposed in the city. This is so despite the fact that coronavirus cases identified daily have come down considerably.”
Delhi recorded 11,684 cases of Covid-19 infection on Tuesday and 12,527 on Monday.
On 16 January, Jain said, “The curbs, including the weekend curfew, imposed in Delhi are showing their impact on the spread of the virus infection. We will monitor the situation for three-four days and then review the restrictions imposed.”
On another occasion, he also declared that the Delhi government would consider easing the restrictions once the daily case count begins to come down below 15,000.
Jain informed that around 13,000 fresh Covid-19 cases might be identified in the city today and the positivity rate might fall to 24 per cent.
It was relieving that there were very few cases of hospitalisation as most of the hospitalbeds meant for Covid-19 patients were vacant. The daily testing for detecting virus infection has been ramped up, he added.