No new Covid cases in Delhi after 1,027 days

The national capital on Monday logged no fresh cases of Covid-19 for the first time in 1,027 days — a major milestone in Delhi’s fight against a pandemic that has ensnared it for the best part of nearly three years and claimed more than 26,500 lives.

The city last saw a zero Covid-19 case count on March 24, 2020, also the day that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the country would be locked down from midnight, as part of hard measures to contain the then relatively unknown infection.

Delhi logged its first case of the coronavirus disease on March 7, 2020. Since then, at least 2,007,313 people have been infected with the viral infection, according to data from the Delhi health department’s Covid-19 bulletin released on Monday.

To be sure, several people get tested for Covid-19 at home using rapid kits. These kits, which are known as rapid antigen tests, display results within 15 minutes, but are not reflected on official state government data.

According to the government’s bulletin, 931 Covid-19 tests were conducted in Delhi on Monday.

The Capital registered its first casualty of Covid-19 on March 13, 2020. Over 34 months since then, at least 26,522 Delhi residents have also died of the infection, showed government data.

No Covid-19 patients died on Monday, the bulletin also showed.

Over the past week, the city recorded an average of three fresh Covid-19 cases every day. At its peak, on April 13, 2021, this number was 25,294.

Senior officials in the Delhi health department confirmed the city has clocked few cases Covid-19 cases over the past few months.

“The death count has been zero for some time now,” said a senior official from the Delhi health department.

Delhi has endured five waves of the infection: Between end-May and June 2020, in September 2020, in November 2020, between April and May 2021, and the last major one in January last year.

In April and May 2021 alone, 763,810 were infected with Covid-19, of whom at least 13,210 died, according to official figures.

Delhi also clocked its single-highest Covid-19 toll during this period, when 448 people succumbed on May 3.

The January 2022 wave — driven by the highly infectious, but relatively less virulent Omicron iteration of the virus — saw the single-day case tally hit a peak of 28,867 (on January 2022).

Monday’s landmark was enabled largely by two factors – immunity derived from natural infections, and primarily due to a widespread inoculation programme that has seen every adult in Delhi and several children aged between 12 and 18 receiving at least two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

According to the state’s health bulletin, 15,710,717 people in Delhi have been administered both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine. Further, 337,664 people have received the precautionary dose.

Health experts said hospitals were prepared to handle a “worst case scenario”.

Dr Subhash Giri, medical director, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital and director and CEO, Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital, said, “When an individual gets infected, they develop good immunity against future infections. Taking vaccines adds to that immunity level.”