New Covid-19 cases are breaking records in Delhi every day. Lockdown 4.0 came into force on 18 May with all states getting considerable relaxations. The states were also given the right to decide on their red zones and containment areas as long as they complied with the Centre’s guidelines. Earlier, 11 districts in Delhi were under the red zone but in lockdown 4.0, the Delhi government has demarcated containment zones as red zones.
But with the rest of Delhi resuming economic activities, the numbers have shown an alarming trend that after 18 May, every day has seen more coronavirus positive cases in the national capital. When announcing exemptions, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “In the last nearly one and a half months, you people have suffered a lot of penance and have faced many hardships and your austerity will not fail. In the last two months, 10,054 cases of coronavirus have been reported in Delhi but people are also recovering and going back to their homes.
While 45% people were cured, unfortunately 160 people lost their lives. This will not end until a vaccine for the disease arrives in the market. The lockdown cannot last forever and we used it for our preparation of infrastructure. Now, we have to move towards opening our economy slowly. In view of the Central government guidelines, the Delhi government has decided to allow relaxation on several things during the fourth phase of the lockdown.”
Kejriwal made this announcement on Monday and within 24 hours, the Covid-19 bulletin on 19 May reported 500 new cases in Delhi, which was the highest ever reported on a single day and the number of cases increasing to 10,554. The record was again broken in the next 24 hours and on 20 May, 534 new cases were reported. Now, the total number of corona patients in Delhi is 11,088. Again, within another 24 hours, new cases reported were 571 breaking the previous day’s record, taking the total cases to 11,659.
The unrelenting increase continued in the next 24 hours too, another record of 660 cases were found in Delhi. With this, the number of coronavirus patients in Delhi increased to 12,319 on Friday. So far 208 people have died from Covid-19 in Delhi whereas, till Monday, this figure was 160. The Delhi government has argued that this increase was due to old cases that had not been added to the government’s health bulletin.
Out of the 12,319 corona patients that were reported in Delhi, 5,397 have been cured. On the increasing number of cases, Satyendar Jain, the Delhi Health Minister, said, “Till date, there have been a total of 12,319 cases, of which 660 cases have been included yesterday. Recovery of 5,397 people has taken place and there are 6,214 active cases.
I am repeatedly telling you that the doubling rate in Delhi is 13 days, which was 11 days a few days ago. The doubling rate is not increasing. It is false news that the doubling rate has come to 4-5 days, it is still 13-14 days and is gradually increasing to 20 days, which is a good thing. At the same time, the death cases that have increased are because many hospitals had not sent in their full information, which we received in the last few days, then after totalling, there have been 208 deaths.”
With the Delhi Health Ministry content with thinking the doubling rate is still low, the government records clearly point out ever since economic activities resumed, Delhi has successively broken its own record in the number of fresh cases.