A worker prepares a bed for Covid patients at the Commonwealth Games Village in the face of the Omicron cases in New Delhi on Sunday, December 19, 2021. (PTI photo)

Cases, positivity at 6 month high; City is working on reopening Covid centers

The test positive rate – the percentage of coronavirus tests that gave a positive result – was 0.17% on Sunday in Delhi, its highest in nearly six months.

These capital increases come as a wave of infections fueled by the highly transmittable Omicron variant of the coronavirus that is sweeping Europe, where several countries have announced a return of lockdown measures.

The UK reported 82,886 new cases on Sunday – only the fourth time since the pandemic started in February 2020 that daily cases exceeded 80,000 – and a 72% increase from the odd 48,000 infections recorded last Sunday.

So far, a total of 22 cases of Omicron have been reported in Delhi. Ten of these patients were discharged from the hospital. Most positive cases do not have the genome sequenced to determine which variant of the coronavirus is responsible for the infection.

Low demand worries, Omicron: recovery continues but remains inconsistent

India’s economic recovery has been relatively strong so far, but has been mixed. The organized corporate sector has rebounded and this is even reflected in strong tax revenues as the informal sector appears to be at an impasse.

The latest job data is worrying. Unemployment in the week ending December 12 reached 8.53 percent for the first time in 17 weeks, due to an increase in urban unemployment to 10.09 percent and also an increase in rural unemployment to 7.42 percent, showed data from the CMIE. An additional obstacle could be the new wave of Omicron and the insufficient speed of vaccinations.