Amid a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said the capital was up to the challenge of beating the virus with the implementation of a five-point plan that includes enhancing the number of beds, focusing on testing and isolation, providing patients with oximeters and oxygen concentrators, conducting plasma therapy and carrying out screening and survey of people.
Also, in the backdrop of competitive politics between the Centre and the Delhi government with regard to anti-COVID measures in the capital, Kejriwal said he wanted to thank the Centre for helping the city fight the pandemic and initiate rapid antigen testing. “I want to thank the Centre especially for having cooperated with us at every step in our fight against the coronavirus. The Centre held our hands in the beginning. Now, we have bought six lakh antigen testing kits,” he said.
Kejriwal admitted that after the relaxations were made in the lockdown, the virus spread more rapidly than his government had expected and that in the first week of June, people had to struggle to find hospital beds and get themselves tested. “An option before us was to impose lockdown again. We asked the people of Delhi, and they said that the lockdown could not go on indefinitely,” he said.
The chief minister said the first priority for his government was to increase the number of beds. “In the beginning of June, we saw that people were running from one hospital to another looking for beds. I was flooded by phone calls from people who were looking for beds. I would stay up all night to help them. For some days now, I am not getting phone calls asking for help in getting a bed,” he said.
Among the steps taken to enhance the number of beds, Kejriwal said, was asking big private hospitals to reserve at least 40 per cent beds for COVID-19, turning some government and private hospitals into COVID-only facilities and attaching hotels to hospitals. He said 2,000 beds have been arranged at the Radha Soami Satsang campus and a temporary facility of 450 beds has been created at a new hospital being constructed at Burari.
“We have around 13,500 beds now, of which around 7,500 are unoccupied,” he said. Kejriwal spoke about scaling up testing from around 5,000 samples in the first week of June to around 20,000 at present.
Oximeters are being provided to every COVID-19 patient who is in home isolation, and the Delhi government's effort is to provide every bed in the government hospitals with an oxygen facility.
With regard to plasma therapy, Kejriwal said the national capital has shown the way to the rest of the country. He said that the first trial of plasma therapy was conducted in Delhi. He referred to a serological survey being initiated in Delhi on Saturday, which will cover 20,000 people, and said survey and screening was an important aspect of his government's anti-COVID strategy. “Our victory in the fight against the coronavirus is certain. But we cannot say when it will happen. But I am sure that coronavirus will lose and Delhi will win,” he said.
