Speaking on the sidelines of a Republic Day programme, CM Kejriwal said, “We don’t want livelihood of people to be affected, Covid restrictions to be eased as soon as possible.”
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said that Covid-19 restrictions imposed in the national capital will be eased as soon as possible, as the positivity rate is expected to drop at 10% today. Speaking on the sidelines of a Republic Day programme, CM Kejriwal said, “We don’t want livelihood of people to be affected, Covid restrictions to be eased as soon as possible.”
The chief minister further added, “Soon we will try to do away with the restrictions and bring your life back to normalcy, will make all efforts in that direction.” He said, “When Covid cases rise, we are forced to impose restrictions, shut down markets, impose the odd-even rule. We understand that people face difficulties, but trust us, we only bring in restrictions that are needed.”
“Last week some traders met me and said that the weekend curfew and odd-even rule is affecting their business and requested to lift the curbs, so I told them that we will lift the curbs as soon as it is possible,” said CM Kejriwal.
Earlier on Monday, Delhi reported 5,760 new Covid cases and 30 deaths, while the positivity rate dropped to 11.79 per cent, according to data shared by the health department.
The health bulletin showed 48,844 Covid tests were conducted in the capital the previous day as compared to 69,022 on Saturday. The number of daily cases in Delhi has been declining after touching the record high of 28,867 on January 13.
The capital had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 percent on January 15, the highest so far in the ongoing wave of the pandemic. Delhi had on Sunday reported 9,197 Covid cases with a positivity rate of 13.32 per cent and 34 deaths due to the infection. It took just 10 days for cases to drop below the 10,000-mark.
The capital on Saturday recorded 45 deaths due to Covid, the highest since June 5, and 11,486 cases with a positivity rate of 16.36 per cent. On Friday, the city logged 10,756 cases with a positivity rate of 18.04 per cent and 38 deaths. As many as 543 people have succumbed to Covid in the national capital so far in January.
However, Health Minister Satyendar Jain and officials have maintained that most patients had comorbidities, such as cancer, liver or kidney diseases, and Covid wasn’t the primary reason for deaths this time. There are 15,411 beds for Covid patients in Delhi hospitals and 2,394 (15.53 per cent) of them are occupied.
The bulletin stated that the number of Covid patients in hospitals has dropped from 2,624 on January 19 to 2,290 on Monday. Currently, 160 patients are on ventilator support. There are 45,140 active Covid cases in Delhi. Of these, 36,838 patients are recovering in home isolation, it said.
