Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that the national capital has fought a war against the Covid-19 pandemic and the third wave has now been brought under control.
Noting that the patients were lying on the streets and corridors of hospitals when New York had reached its Covid-19 peak, Kejriwal said: “It was not the case in Delhi as 7,000 beds were lying vacant when the highest single-day spikes were reported.”
With reports of 1,133 present Covid cases in Delhi, the CM said that the positivity rate has now dropped to 1.3 percent compared to November when the figure was 15 percent.
“In November, the number of active cases touched 45,000 and today Delhi has just 12,000 active cases. Besides, the national capital has a recovery rate of 96.5 percent. There were 131 deaths on November 19, but today the deaths have come down to 37,” Kejriwal said while giving a detailed recovery rate.
He said that “some people have advised the government to fraudulently improve Covid-19 testing figures”, but the Delhi government issued strict orders. “All the tests are genuine.”
He said that Delhi is currently conducting 4,500 tests per 10 lakh population in a day while the number of tests per 10 lakh population is 670 in Uttar Pradesh, 800 in Gujarat, 4,300 in the US, and 4,800 in the UK.
“Some days back Delhi witnessed the third wave of Covid 19 pandemic. The first wave of this pandemic came to Delhi in the month of June when the number of cases started increasing and the number of deaths also increased.
In the month of August and September, the national capital witnessed the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Delhi witnessed the third wave of Covid pandemic in the month of October. On one hand, the pollution level of Delhi was increasing due to the stubble burning at the neighboring states and on the other hand, the number of Covid-19 cases was also increasing.”
He said the citizens of Delhi took the situation very seriously and fought this battle against Covid as war and today I am very happy to say that due to the efforts of the citizens of Delhi the third wave of Covid pandemic in the capital has also come under control.
“We can see that the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic in Delhi is over. In the month of November, there was the day when the number of infections in the national capital touched 8,600. Not only in India but also across the globe this was the highest number of Covid-19 cases reported in a day from a city.”
When the third wave of Covid pandemic hit Delhi then we increased the number of tests per day from 60,000 to 90,000, said Kejriwal, adding “We were conducting tests and isolating Covid positive patients. Today Delhi is conducting around 90,000 tests per day. This number is highest across India and also across the globe.”