The death toll in Delhi due to COVID-19 has seen a sharp jump, with 82 deaths added to the cumulative total on Friday, but according to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, as many as 69 deaths had occurred earlier and have been taken into account now.
While 13 deaths were reported on Thursday, 69 are old cases, out of which 52 were reported by Safdarjung Hospital to the Delhi government only two days ago, Sisodia said.
“For some reason, we had not got the information earlier...it was a case of late reporting. These numbers will reflect in yesterday's death toll, but these deaths had happened earlier,” he said.
According to the COVID health bulletin of Delhi of May 28, which reported the situation with regard to the disease on May 27, the death toll in the capital due to COVID-19 stood at 316. With the addition of the latest figures, the cumulative death toll is set to close in on the 400 mark.
The capital reported the biggest single day surge in the number of cases on Thursday, with 1,024 new cases reported, taking the total number of cases to 16,281.
Heath Minister Satyender Jain said his government was ready with necessary arrangements to deal with a surge in the number of cases. He said while around 2,100 COVID-19 patients are admitted in hospitals in the capital, there are 5,000 dedicated COVID beds available. Of these, 1,400 beds are in private hospitals and 3,700 in government facilities.
“We are increasing the capacity continuously. Our aim is to increase the number of beds so that their number is double the number of patients,” Jain said.
A total of 28 COVID-19 patients are on ventilator support, while there are 300 ventilators available for patients suffering from the viral infection, Jain said.
As the capital saw a surge in COVID-19 cases, Sisodia said there was no need to panic and that 80-90 per cent of the patients were recovering in home isolation.
He also said that the neighbours of COVID-19 positive people who are in home isolation need not panic as the infection will spread to them only if they come in close contact with the patients, through intake of droplets.
“While the number of cases is going up, the thing to note is that a large number of people are recovering. And majority of them have recovered in home isolation,” Sisodia said.
