New Delhi, Sep 2 (PTI) The national capital on Wednesday recorded 2,509 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day spike here in around two months, and the maximum number of tests conducted for the disease since March.

According to the Delhi government's health bulletin, 28,835 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. Of these, 20,965 were rapid-antigen tests, and the rest were RT-PCR, CBNAAT and TrueNat tests combined. On Tuesday, the authorities had reported 24,198 tests.

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The last time Delhi recorded more than 2,500 new cases was on July 3 (2,520 cases). The new cases took the infection tally to over 1.79 lakh, while the death toll mounted to 4,481, authorities said.

The city on Tuesday reported 2,312 new COVID-19 cases.

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Nineteen fatalities were reported on Wednesday. The number of active cases stands at 16,502, up from 15,870 on Tuesday.

On June 23, the national capital had reported its highest single-day spike of 3,947 new cases till date.

The COVID-19 death toll in Delhi stood at 4,462 on Tuesday.

Wednesday's bulletin said the death toll from the coronavirus infection has risen to 4,481 and the total number of cases has climbed to 1,79,569.

The positivity rate stood at 8.7 per cent, while the recovery rate was over 88 per cent, it said.

Also, the number of containment zones jumped to 894 from 846 on Tuesday, the bulletin said.

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took a meeting to discuss the COVID-19 situation in Delhi, specifically regarding testing strategy.

Top officials, including the Delhi chief secretary, the principal secretary (Home), the principal secretary (Health) and the divisional commissioner, also held a meeting with all deputy commissioners and chief district medical officers to review the situation.

Delhi has seen a fluctuation in the number of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of August.

On August 1, the city recorded 1,118 fresh cases, while for the next three days, the number of new infections reported in a single day stayed below the 1,000-mark.

From August 5 to August 9, the number of fresh COVID-19 cases reported in a single day again stayed above the 1,000-mark, only to come down to 707 on August 10.

The city saw less than 1,000 fresh cases reported in a day thrice between August 11 and August 22 -- August 13 (956), August 16 (652) and August 17 (787).

Since August 18, the daily count of new cases has again started going up.

According to the bulletin, out of the total number of beds in COVID hospitals in the city, 9,868 are vacant.

Also, 3,063 beds in COVID Care Centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned via the Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights, it said.

The bulletin said 1,58,586 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far.

The number of people in home isolation stands at 8,407.

The total number of tests done till date in Delhi stands at 16,36,518. The number of tests done per million was 86,132.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)