New Delhi, July 15: As the active coronavirus cases hit their lowest in five weeks, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Wednesday that the COVID-19 situation in Delhi is better than what it was in June, but cautioned the war against the disease has not been won yet.

Delhi recorded 1,647 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, which pushed the overall tally to 1,16,993. But the active cases reduced to 17,807, the lowest in last 36 days.

Also, this was for the fifth consecutive day that the number of fresh coronavirus cases remained within the 1,000-2,000 range, according to the Delhi Health Department. Coronavirus in India: Live Map.

With 41 fresh fatalities, the death toll has however reached 3,487. The department said 22,528 tests (6,564 RT-PCR and 15,964 Rapid Antigen) were conducted on Wednesday. According to Kejriwal, the government scaled up testing for COVID-19 aggressively and daily 20,000 to 23,000 tests are conducted in Delhi.

Addressing an online media briefing, Kejriwal said Delhi would have had 2.25 lakh cases by July 15 according to the Centre's formula, but there are only 1.15 lakh cases.

Had the Delhi government fought the virus alone, he added, it would have failed and therefore his dispensation sought cooperation from the BJP-led Centre, NGOs, and other organisations. "Our first principle was that this fight cannot be won alone."

After the cases started rising in the first week of June, it was expected that there would be 1.34 lakh active cases by July 15, but there were only 18,600 active cases in the city until Tuesday, he said. The number of active cases further reduced Wednesday.

"We are in a better situation today, as compared to June, but it does not mean we have won the war (against COVID-19). We have yet to go a long way. "There may be a spike again in COVID-19 cases. We don't have to be complacent. We will not sit idle. We will have to be fully prepared," Kejriwal said.

The 'Delhi Model', which was recently praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is based on collective efforts by the AAP government, the Centre, other organisations and all political parties, he said and thanked the BJP and Congress for their cooperation.

The chief minister said the Delhi government worked on three principles after realising that the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be won alone.

"If the Delhi government had thought it would win the fight against coronavirus alone, we would have failed. Our first principle was that this fight cannot be won alone. "Our second principle was that we did not criticise our critics for their views on our work. We improved things after somebody flagged it. The third principle was we did not accept defeat. Had we accepted defeat, there would have been a surge in the numbers of deaths," he added.

Lauding his government's home-isolation policy, he said due to it, people are coming forward in large numbers to undergo tests.

"There are 15,500 beds in COVID-19 care facilities. On June 1, we had only 300 ICU beds. But today we have 2,100 ICU beds out of which 1,000 have been occupied," he said. In a related development, the state-run Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital said it will soon launch a plasma bank which will be the third such facility in the national capital.

Binay Bhushan, the nodal officer of GTB Hospital, said the largest medical facility in East Delhi has got the equipment, know-how and staff to start a plasma bank. "The hospital has already got a blood bank which caters to the demand in the East Delhi region. This facility can be used to collect and store plasma," Bhushan said. India Witnesses Highest Single-Day Spike of 29,429 COVID-19 Cases, Coronavirus Tally Inches Closer to 1 Million.

This week, Kejriwal launched a plasma bank at LNJP. The Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) also operates a plasma bank. Jamia Millia Islamia said its Faculty of Dentistry will soon start tele-counselling for patients in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The faculty will provide dental services to patients from the safety of their homes.