With 25 fresh COVID-19 cases, city sees biggest single-day jump

Of the news cases, 18 were reported from Nizamuddin where a religious programme was organised

Twenty-five new COVID-19 cases were reported in Delhi on Monday, taking the total number of cases to 97, according to the Delhi government.

This is the biggest single-day jump in the number of cases in the city so far.

Sunday and Saturday had also recorded the biggest single-day jumps till then, with 23 and nine new cases respectively.

There have been two deaths due to the disease so far in the city, but there was no death reported on Monday.

Though 97 cases of COVID-19 have been reported so far, there are 89 active cases and five people have been discharged.

Of the 25 news cases on Monday, 18 were reported from Nizamuddin, where a religious programme was organised at the ‘

markaz ’ (the mosque) around March 18 in which more than 500 people from various States took part.

“Our number of new cases is going up due to the Nizamuddin incident. Going by yesterday’s [Sunday] and today’s [Monday] trend, more people will test positive from Nizamuddin. We expect the daily number of new cases to increase further in the coming days due to this,” a Delhi Health Department official told The Hindu .

“A total of 24 people from Nizamuddin have been tested positive for COVID-19 so far. Six were tested positive yesterday [Sunday] and 18 were tested positive today [Monday],” the official said.

The official said that the six people who were tested positive on Sunday were from Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the 18 tested positive on Monday were from different parts of the country.

“None of the people who have been tested positive are from Delhi. They are from different parts of India, including Kashmir and Tamil Nadu. There are one or two foreign nationals too,” the official added.

The Delhi government did not reveal the details of 25 people, who tested positive, including their place of origin or their age.

A spokesperson said that the government will ask Delhi Police to register an FIR against the Maulana of the ‘ markaz ’ at Nizamuddin.

The State government said that a restriction was imposed of non-essential services in the entire country India on March 24 and it was the duty of every owner and administrator of every hotel, guest house, hostel and similar establishment to ensure people maintain social distancing, adding that it seemed that social distancing and quarantine protocols was not practised in Nizamuddin.

“It has come to our knowledge that the administrators violated guidelines and several people who were present at the Nizamuddin event tested positive for COVID-19. By this gross act of negligence, many lives have been endangered. It was the responsibility of every citizen to pro-actively avoid such gathering... this is nothing but a criminal act,” the government said.

The Delhi government said that after the Centre informed it about the first COVID-19 patient and requested assistance, all symptomatic patients were moved to our medical facilities and as a safety precaution, all non-symptomatic contacts were moved to quarantine centres.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government on Monday wrote to the Sports Authority of India to hand over the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Lodi Road to the district administration, to turn it into a quarantine facility.

According to the government, 2,168 samples have been sent for testing for COVID-19 till date in the city, of which 322 results are awaited.

About 19,989 people who are contacts of people tested positive for COVID-19 are currently under home quarantine in the city.

Also, 1,137 people are under institutional quarantine in the city and 4,200 passengers are under home quarantine.

“Crisis Support and Counselling Centre [CSCC] at IHBAS is operational from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on all seven days for COVID-19 epidemic. Videoconference facility for counselling at the CSCC, IHBAS is also available [Skype ID – CSCCIHBAS],” an official statement said.