Delhi records nine new cases, highest single-day spike so far

Among the nine new cases is a 36-year-old woman from Jahangirpuri, a contact of a 38-year-old woman from Dilshad Garden who had tested positive as case number 10 in Delhi.




Reporting the highest number of cases in a single day so far, Delhi recorded nine positive cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, taking the total number to 49. Two people have died from the disease — a 60-year-old Yemeni national admitted to Indraprastha Apollo hospital died on March 26, and on March 13, a 68-year-old woman from West Delhi had died at RML hospital.

Among the nine new cases is a 36-year-old woman from Jahangirpuri, a contact of a 38-year-old woman from Dilshad Garden who had tested positive as case number 10 in Delhi. So far, nine people, including a 49-year-old mohalla clinic doctor, have been traced back to the Dilshad Garden resident, who tested positive after returning from Saudi Arabia. Fearing community transmission, many doctors working in mohalla clinics have not been coming to work. Health department officials said of the 470 total clinics, around 200 clinics are functional. Sources said many senior doctors who don’t want to expose themselves to the risk, have applied for leaves.

A 48-year-old man from Uttam Nagar working in a private clinic also tested positive for the disease. The doctor had visited a person with a travel history to New Zealand. This is the second confirmed case of a healthcare worker testing positive in Delhi. Of the nine new cases, three have a direct contact history and four are either contacts of a positive case or have had contact with a person having a travel history.

Sources said officials are now shifting their focus to community transmission, where the source of the infection cannot be traced. On Saturday, a positive case from Nizamuddin West put the authorities on alert. Senior officers in the department said that many people from this area, including the 82-year-old man who tested positive, visit the Nizamuddin Dargah and samples of several people have been lifted. “We are also getting information that many people who visited the dargah have moved out of the city. We are tracing the case closely,” said a senior official from the department of health.

9 cases in Noida

As 9 new cases of coronavirus surfaced in Noida, police said they will register an FIR against a fire safety firm for allegedly hiding information. Samples of five employees of the firm returned positive on Saturday. This is the biggest spike in the number of cases in Noida so far. It now has 27 cases. “So far we have details of six of nine patients who have tested positive. Five employees, in their 30s, have been traced to the same firm where people had been infected before. The sixth case, an 11-year-old, got the infection from a family member who had travelled to Denmark. We will be submitting a complaint letter to Noida Police against the fire safety firm for withholding information about the visit of a British national to the firm in mid-March,” said Dr Anurag Bhargava, CMO Gautam Budh Nagar.

Between March 14-16, a British national visited the firm for an audit and that information was allegedly not passed on to the health department. Since the visit, at least 13 persons, both employees of the firm and their family members, have tested positive in the district.

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