Delhi: 37% Rise in Home Isolation COVID-19 Cases; Jump in Containment Zones Count

New Delhi: With the national capital registering an upsurge in COVID-19 cases, there has been a rise of over 37% in the number of people under home isolation here and a steady increase in the count of containment zones in the last seven days.

The positivity rate also rose to 0.53% on March 5 from 0.36% on February 27, according to official figures, which also showed that the number of containment on March 5 stood at 591 an increase of 46 from 545 on February 27.

Delhi recorded 312 COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest number of daily incidences in nearly one-and-a-half months, while three more fatalities pushed the death toll in the city to 10,918.

It was also a significant jump from 261 cases registered on Thursday.

A total of 585 cases were reported on January 1 and 384 on January 4. The daily count had dropped to 306 on January 11 and risen again to 386 on January 12, according to official data shared by the Delhi health department.

The numbers had started to come down in February, and on February 26, 256 cases were recorded, the highest daily count in that month.

On February 27, 243 cases were recorded, while the number of containment zones stood at 545. As on that day, 627 people were under home quarantine in Delhi. On February 28, the daily cases had dropped to 197, with a positivity rate of 0.34 per cent, but the number of containment zones rose to 556 and home isolation cases jumped to 691.

On March 1, while the cases dropped to 175, the positivity rate increased to 0.44 per cent with 596 containment zones and 739 people under home isolation.

The daily cases since then have seen an upward trend, rising from 217 on March 2 to 312 on March 5. In this period, the containment zones' count increased from 562 to 591, while the number of home quarantined people jumped from 777 to 863, as per the official data.

Observing the trends and rise in number of admissions, doctors recently warned that the number of daily cases could go up in the coming months and urged people to continue to wear masks and follow COVID-19 safety norms.

On February 27, 436 beds in COVID-19 facilities were occupied, which rose to 599 on March 5, as per the data.

The number of active cases in this period surged from 1,307 to 1,779, according to the health department data. However, the number of daily deaths have remained in single digits in the last several weeks.

In the beginning of this year, from January 15-26, the daily figures had ranged from 148 on January 25 to 299 on January 16.

On February 9, 13, 17 and 25, and March 2 the death count recorded on all days was zero.

On February 9, no fatality from the coronavirus infection was registered in Delhi for the first time in that month, and after a gap of nearly nine months.

Delhi had recorded 94 fresh COVID-19 cases on February 16, the lowest in over nine months.

However, after a week on February 24, it more than doubled to 200 and increased further to 220 on February 25 and 256 on February 26.

Health experts and doctors had attributed this “sudden rise” to complacency in people, not following of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and “assuming all is well now”.