Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday identified high levels of air pollution as “one of the most important factors” for the rise in Covid-19 infections, linking the two crises the capital is going through, but said that the third wave of coronavirus disease. The outbreak in the city is likely to be controlled in another 7-10 days.
Kejriwal’s comments come at a time when the city has recorded persistently dismal Covid figures – it recorded the most deaths in a single day on Thursday and, a day earlier, the most new cases. City hospitals have been flooded as active cases jumped from 21,490 on October 13 to more than 43,000 on November 13.
At the same time, air quality in the capital has been several times above the safe limit for most of this month. For six days starting November 6, it remained in the “severe” zone, above 401, with the reading at some monitoring centers at maximum.
Exposure to high levels of air pollution can exacerbate a Covid-19 infection, particularly since the virus and particles affect a person’s ability to breathe once they enter deep into the lungs. For every 1ug / m3 increase in exposure to PM2.5, the increase in mortality risk due to Covid-19 increases by 11%, a group of Harvard University researchers said in a recent study.
“Whatever steps are necessary, we are taking them. There are steps we will take over the next few days, next week and we believe that within the next 7 to 10 days, the outbreak will be under control, ”the CM said in a video press conference.
Kejriwal did not elaborate on the options the government is considering to control the outbreak, but according to senior government officials who asked not to be identified, the administration has asked the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) to convene a meeting. for Tuesday.
Experts said they feared it would take longer for the city to turn the corner from its current peak.
“Based on current trends, it appears that cases may increase for at least another three weeks unless the government imposes certain restrictions on non-essential activities, which can affect market hours, meeting sizes, etc.” said Dr. Lalit Kant, former chief of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
“We are seeing slightly more serious cases that are taking longer to recover. There are different theories, but the most plausible seems to be the increase in air pollution levels, as this trend is mainly observed in Delhi, where pollution levels are the highest, ”said Dr Rajesh Chawla, Senior Consultant of respiratory medicine and critical care at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.
“Both severe contamination and the holiday season are contributing to the spread and severity of the disease, and we will know exactly how the outbreak develops once the holiday season is over. The cases will eventually go away, but I don’t see it happening in days; it will probably take weeks, ”he added.
The peak has been particularly pronounced due to the festive season. In the week ending October 25, when the city quietly celebrated Dussehra, there was an average of3,663 cases per day.Like Thursday, this number rose to 7,196.
By comparison, the number was 2,627 in the first week of October.
In his speech, the prime minister spoke extensively about the air quality crisis, which he said has played an important role in driving the epidemic. “One of the main reasons for the Covid-19 spike in Delhi is the increase in pollution,” Kejriwal said.
The 24-hour air quality index according to Friday’s bulletin at 4 pm stood at 339, in the “very poor” category, worse than Thursday’s 314, and weather experts expect the number to worsen during the weekend, when at least some people are expected to defy bans on popping firecrackers.
“Although we have predicted that this Diwali is likely to be better compared to recent years, the weather is expected to be unfavorable. If the people of the city pop cookies, then the pollution level could drop to ‘severe’ on Diwali day and the day after, ”said VK Soni, director of IMD’s environmental monitoring research center.
The crisis led the National Green Court to ban the use of firecrackers in the National Capital Region (NCR), a decision that was also based on research showing a strong link between the severity of Covid-19 and the poor quality of firecrackers. air.
“This time, the dangerous air period seems to have come even before Diwali. The relationship of air pollution to the severity of pneumonia is well established. Therefore, it is expected that there will be an increase in the positivity and severity of Covid 19. Instead, all efforts should be made to curb the contamination, ”the court said on November 9.
The link between contamination and coronavirus disease was first established in Italy, where officials discovered nearly 40% of documented cases and a third of deaths in the northern Lombardy region.
The epicenter of the outbreak also turned out to be a heavily industrialized and polluted region.
The findings were supported by a statistical analysis of the Covid-19 case and the mortality spread across the 3,089 counties in the United States. The Harvard University team of researchers found that regions with poorer air quality had more severe numbers.
“We found that a 1 ug / m3 increase in average long-term PM2.5 is associated with a statistically significant 11% increase in the county’s Covid-19 death rate,” the authors said in their report, published in Science Advances on November 4.
The air quality crisis has been an annual event for the past decade, Kejriwal said in his briefing on Friday, while dedicating a sizable chunk to one of the leading causes of air pollution: agricultural fires in neighboring states. from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. .
Kejriwal shared the results of an experiment with a bio-decomposer, developed by the Pusa Institute, which can be used to dissolve the stubble of crops that farmers often burn.
Last month, he said, the biodecomponent was spread over 2,000 acres of farmland in Delhi and the results of the experiment, based on samples collected from 24 villages, showed that between 70% and 95% of the total crop stubble they have decomposed.
“Now we have a solution. I urge other states, the central government and the Supreme Court to take note of this. The Delhi government will submit a petition along with this report to the central government aviation safety commission urging it to issue instructions to the states to use the biodecomposer, ”Kejriwal said.
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