The number of new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) shot up to 180 in the capital on Friday, up from 118 cases recorded a day before, according to the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government.
This is the highest number of cases recorded in the city since June 16 when 212 cases were reported.
This week, Delhi recorded over 144 new cases of Covid-19 on average each day according to the data. In comparison to just over 70 cases a day on average during last week, and 51 cases the week before that.
There is an increasing trend in the number of cases, despite all Delhi residents receiving at least one shot of the vaccine. The previous sero surveillance conducted in September showed that 97% of Delhi residents had antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19.
The latest surge could be linked to the new omicron variant; the number of omicron cases in Delhi stood at 67 on Friday, tailing just behind Maharashtra that has reported 88 cases so far. The heavily mutated omicron variant is thought to be at least three times more transmissible than delta and significantly evasive of immunity gained through vaccination.
In addition to the absolute number of cases in the capital, there has also been an increase in the positivity rate or the proportion of samples that return positive. The positivity rate shot up to 0.29% on Friday, increasing from less than 0.1% that was maintained for nearly six months.
The average positivity rate last week stood at 0.12%.
The first phase of Covid-19 restrictions by Delhi government will kick in if the number crosses 0.5% as per the government’s graded response action plan. However, the government has already started working on buffing up its infrastructure for testing and treating Covid-19 patients. The Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal after a review meeting yesterday said that the government was working to build capacity to conduct 3 lakh tests a day and deal with 1 lakh cases each day.