3rd Covid wave here, Delhi health minister says as daily cases near 10,000

Daily Covid-19 cases in India's capital city might reach 10,000 today, said Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain.

"The third wave of the pandemic has set in," he told media, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

Expecting more cases, Delhi's government has instructed private hospitals to increase the number of beds reserved for Covid-19 patients from 10 percent to 40 percent of the total capacity.

Jain's comments come a day after the head of India's Covid Task Force Technical Committee N K Arora warned that major city hospitals would be swamped by Covid patients in the coming weeks of this month.

Yesterday Delhi reported 5,481 fresh Covid-19 cases with the positivity rate reaching 8.37 percent, the highest since May 17 last year when it stood at 8.42 percent.

Meanwhile, Anurag Agrawal, director of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology of India also talked about the arrival of third wave.

"Yes, the third wave has begun. If things continue as they are, big cities like Mumbai and Delhi will be at their peak within this month," he said.