New Delhi, Dec 4 (IANS): With more than 85,000 tests for Covid-19 in a single day, the national capital conducted a record number of tests on Friday since the pandemic struck the city, as per the health bulletin issued by the Delhi government.

The capital city tested 85,003 samples in the last 24 hours, of which 4,067 returned positive. The city also reported 4,862 recoveries and 73 deaths in the same duration. The highest number of tests conducted till date pushed the positivity rate further down to 4.8 per cent, the government data showed.

The total tally of cases in Delhi has reached 5,86,125 while the death toll has risen to 9,497.

Meanwhile, of the total 85,003 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, 40,191 were done through RT-PCR and 44,812 were Rapid Antigen Tests. The capital city has conducted 65,85,703 tests so far, government data showed on Friday.

Meanwhile, the number of containment zones in the national capital has been raised to 5,909.

After battling the third surge with lack of healthcare facilities, and huge number of daily new infections and fatalities in November, December has arrived as a relief for Delhi. The number of daily cases and the positivity rate has gone down drastically this month. While the daily new cases are now limited to below 5,000, the positivity rate is also plunging below 5 per cent. The city had not reported the positivity rate this low since October 7.

However, in spite of the positivity rate and the number of cases going drastically down, fatalities have remained a matter of worry. In November alone, the capital city has reported 2,663 deaths which is 29 per cent of the total fatalities Delhi has witnessed since the outbreak of the pandemic in March.

Currently, 6,653 out of 18,708 beds are occupied in the hospitals, 441 out of 7,942 beds in the dedicated Covid Care Centres and 141 out of 562 beds in the dedicated Covid Health Centres. Over 16,950 people are in home isolation.