The National Capital DEHLI reported 6,608 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), recording fewer than 7,000 cases in a day while conducting the regular 60,000 daily tests for the first time since early-November.
The positivity rate — the number of samples that return positive among total tested — also dropped on Friday to 10.59%, the lowest since November.
Experts see positivity rate as a crucial metric to assess an outbreak in a community and, when this number is coupled with an increase in new cases, it can determine how fast a contagious disease is spreading.
Delhi accounted for 22.39 per cent of the fatalities reported across the country due to the coronavirus infection in a span of 24 hours by recording 131 deaths and became the largest contributor to the single-day COVID-19 deaths in India, the health ministry said .
Even in terms of new single-day cases, Delhi reported the highest number of infections, followed by Kerala and Maharashtra. the infection tally in the national capital to over five lakh, even as 131 new fatalities, the highest single-day death count till date, pushed the count to 7,943.
The ministry said 79.49 per cent of the 585 COVID fatalities reported in a span of 24 hours were from 10 states and Union territories — Delhi, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile Congress president Sonia Gandhi reached Goa on Friday after her doctors advised her to shift out Delhi in view of the heavy pollution and poor air quality that aggravated her chest infection, people aware of the matter said.
A senior Congress functionary said the doctors had advised her to shift to a warmer place till the air quality in the national capital improves.
Sonia Gandhi, 73, arrived in Goa with her son and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Party general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is likely to join the two later sources told .
