Chhattisgarh is grappling hard with the storm of COVID-19 cases as the second wave has hit the tribal state hard and fast. On Tuesday, the state reported a record 15,121 cases taking its tally to 4,71,994. More worryingly, the number of active cases in the state crossed the 1 lakh mark to stand at 1,09,139 on Tuesday night.
The capital Raipur was the worst hit, reporting as many as 4168 cases and 53 deaths in the 24 hours ending Tuesday night, a health department bulletin showed. The death toll across the state in 24 hours stood at 109—the highest yet. Of these, however, 26 deaths were from last week and reported late, the bulletin said. The total deaths in the state till date stands at 5187.
In the past four days, the state has reported 395 deaths, of which 183 deaths have been reported from Raipur. So much so that there is a huge waiting in the crematoriums and graveyards. After a video of numerous dead bodies piling up in the mortuary of the Dr Ambedkar Hospital in Raipur went viral on Sunday, the Raipur municipal authorities made arrangements for 14 extra cremation centres in the city. Also new cremation lands are being identified in the rural areas so that bodies belonging to patients to those areas could be sent back for last rites.
Among other cities, Durg, Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur reported 1755, 1291 and 1024 positive cases respectively in the past 24 hours. Even as the state government is trying hard to manage the situation in the state which is getting worse by the day, the opposition BJP has accused it of grossly mismanaging the pandemic and engaging in black-marketing of medicines.
The state government on Tuesday opened a fully-equipped 360-bed hospital in the Balbir Juneja Indoor Stadium in Raipur. Health Minister T.S. Singh Deo said that the hospital has been made functional in barely four days. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, speaking at a government programme in Raipur said that efforts are constantly on to increase the number of hospital beds in the state. Coronavirus centres and quarantine centres were being opened expediently. The CM claimed that there was no shortage of oxygen beds in the government or private hospitals of the state as arrangements have been made. He also said that adequate doses of Remdesivir injections will be made available in the state within a day or two as two senior bureaucrats from the state had been sent out to Mumbai and Hyderabad for this purpose.
However, a BJP delegation that met the state governor Anusuiya Uike on Tuesday under leadership of former chief minister Raman Singh, demanded a probe into the failure of the state government to utilise ventilators provided by the union government. The state government had claimed that most of the ventilators provided were faulty and many were used after getting them rectified. The delegation sought a probe into whether the ventilators arrived in faulty condition or developed fault after being received in the state. The BJP leaders including leader of opposition Dharamlal Kaushik also demanded that the state government release enough budget and Rs 400 crores from the cess fund for COVID-19 management.
