India / People from outside getting tested in Delhi: Health Minister on rise in cases

india.com : Aug 09, 2020, 04:58 PM
New Delhi: As Delhi witnesses a fresh rise in its coronavirus cases per day, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Sunday attributed it to a number of people from ‘outside Delhi’ getting their tests done in the national capital, with those testing positive, in turn, adding to its overall COVID-19 count.

Speaking to reporters today, Jain first gave out Delhi’s coronavirus number from Saturday, stating that there 1,404 new COVID-19 cases and 16 deaths in Delhi, taking its overall number of positive cases to 1,44,127. Also on the day, he said, there were 1,130 recoveries here.

“1,29,362 recovered cases and 10,668 active cases in Delhi. Death toll rises to 4,098”, he said.

However, on the question of a sudden rise in the capital’s new coronavirus cases, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said, “There are reports that COVID-19 cases are increasing in Delhi, reason for this is that many people from outside Delhi are getting their tests done here. Hence, counting of positive cases is rising here. Otherwise, trend of COVID-19 cases in Delhi is decreasing”.

Notably, after a relatively low number of cases per day in the last few days, combined with rise in cases in both Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Delhi had slipped to fifth in the list of the country’s worst COVID-19 affected states.

However, in recent days, there has been a spike in its daily number of new cases, with the capital reporting over 1,000 cases everyday in the last few days, thus taking its tally to over 1.4 lakh.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, continue to be the two worst-hit states. While the western state has reported over five lakh cases thus far, the southern state is inching towards the three lakh mark.

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