Delhi records 299 COVID-19 cases in 24 hrs, 50 pct spike since yesterday

Delhi has seen an increase in cases over the last week and with this, the national capital's caseload has increased to 18,66,881.

However, no death due to the highly contagious disease was reported in the last 24 hours.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said the AAP government is monitoring the situation and there is no reason to worry until a new variant of concern is detected.

"The daily cases in Delhi are being reported in the range of 100-200. We are keeping an eye on hospital admissions and they are going down. Focus shouldn't be on positivity rate much as of now," he told the media.

The city has been one of the worst hits of COVID-19 during the second wave of the pandemic.

It had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 per cent on Jan 14 this year, the highest during the third wave of the pandemic which was largely driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

This comes as the Delhi government recently announced that fines would not be imposed for not wearing masks (considered effective for controlling the infection spread) in public places after a decline in Covid cases.

While the Delhi Disaster Management Authority did not officially say masks were no longer mandatory, the removal of the Rs. 500 fine has effectively made masks optional.