With testing for COVID-19 in the national capital soon set to be trebled from the current figure of around 5000 a day, the Centre has extended the facilities of its labs to Delhi even as all private and government labs in the city that were authorised to test for the virus have been ordered to work at full capacity and give results within 48 hours.
“The central government is extending to us the facilities of the testing labs that are under its jurisdiction. Delhi has been the only state to conduct maximum tests across the country, and it will continue to do so in the future with the support of the central government,” Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain said on Monday.
At a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the national capital, which was attended by Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a decision was taken that the number of daily tests in Delhi will be doubled in two days and trebled in six days.
Meanwhile, the Delhi government on Monday ordered labs conducting COVID-19 testing in the city to work at full capacity and give results of the tests within 48 hours. As on June 14, Delhi's rate of testing stood at 14,390 per million of the population.
As on June 14, Delhi had a total of 41,182 COVID cases, out of which 2,224 cases came up on Sunday. As many as 24,032 cases are currently active. There have been 1,327 deaths until now and around 5,800 people have been admitted to the hospital.
Regarding Sunday's meeting with Shah—the first such high-level meeting involving all stakeholders in Delhi to discuss COVID-19—Jain said, “The meeting held between the Centre and the state government was very fruitful and the outcome was that both the governments will work in full cooperation with each other to fight against Corona.”
He said the Delhi government took back its order to designate nursing homes with 10-49 beds as COVID facilities because these beds might be required for ailments such as dengue and malaria in the coming months.
On the decision to acquire properties for installation of more beds for treatment of COVID-19 patients, Jain said trains, banquet halls, and other spaces will be used as extensions of hospitals for treatment of less serious patients.
“Even today, we have around 45 per cent of beds available. More than the cases, the real question is how many beds we need for the treatment of the patients. We are making all the necessary arrangements as per the planning,” he said.
On the question of whether there is a community spread in Delhi, Jain said, “We should not go into the technicalities of what is 'community spread'. There is a coronavirus outbreak in Delhi, and this novel virus spreads in big cities where there are densely populated community areas. Such a virus has been observed after 100 years, and it has been spreading rapidly across the world. This has been the most infectious disease of all the diseases until now.”