Delhi recorded 494 fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the lowest daily rise in over seven months, and 14 new fatalities, while the positivity rate remained unchanged at 0.73 per cent on Friday, authorities said.

With the Saturday numbers, the infection tally in the city rose to over 6.26 lakh and the death toll to 10,561, they said.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain tweeted that the positivity rate has been below one per cent for the past 11 days.

"First time less than 500 cases in 7 months (since 17May). Positivity reduced to 0.73% from 15.26% on 7 Nov. Positivity less than 1% for last 11 days. Active cases reduced to 5,342 from 44456 on 13 Nov. Though 3rd wave is going down, be careful and observe all precautions," he tweeted.

From December 21-23, the daily cases count had been below the 1000-mark. On December 21, 803 cases were reported; 939 on December 22 and 871 on December 23.

However, on December 24, 1,063 cases were recorded, dropping again to 758 on December 25 and 655 on December 26. On December 27, 757 cases were recorded while on December 28, the daily cases count was 564, the lowest in the last five months.

On December 29 and 30, the city recorded 703 and 677 cases respectively. On December 31, 574 cases were recorded, and 585 on the first day of 2021.

These 494 cases came out the 67,364 tests conducted the previous day, including 39,591 RT-PCR tests and 27,773 rapid antigen tests, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

On August 17, Delhi had recorded 787 cases, and 652 on August 16.

The active cases tally on Saturday dropped to 5,342 from 5,358 the previous day.

The bulletin said that the total number of cases has climbed to 6,26448.