COVID Live Updates: Delhi Issues Mask Advisory To Symptomatic People Amid Surge In Cases

COVID-19 daily cases are rising in India. In the last 24 hours, the country has logged over 3,000 new infections.

In the last 24 hours, the national capital has logged over 300 new cases of coronavirus, and 2 virus-related deaths. The positivity rate in Delhi now stands at 13.89% and there are currently 806 active cases. This sudden surge in cases has been reported for the first time since September 2022. In the last couple of days Delhi is seeing a surge in COVID cases due to the highly contagious XBB.1.16 variant.

Meanwhile, India recorded 3,016 new Covid-19 cases, the highest in five months, on Wednesday. With this, the active cases tally of the infection has gone up to 11,903 in the country, according to the Union health ministry data.

Why is India witnessing a sudden spike in daily COVID-19 cases? According to the experts, XBB.1.16 recombinant variant is responsible for the current surge in India. The variant comes with several mutations in its spike protein that enables it to evade vaccine-induced immunity and infect those who have received full immunization against the virus. Although there are no specific new symptoms associated with this new variant of concern, the experts have urged people to get tested as and when fever, sore throat, nasal congestion and body ache remains persistent for over 2-3 days.