Delhi has reported more than 4.85 lakh coronavirus cases so far (archive)
New Delhi:
CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) doctors and paramedics will fly to Delhi to help contain another surge in coronavirus cases in the national capital, Interior Ministry officials said Monday night, after numerous meetings with various wings of the armed forces. A senior ministry official said 75 doctors and 250 paramedical personnel will be deployed “as soon as possible” to help medical personnel in Delhi fight the surge in Covid cases.
Personnel are being dispatched from CAPF units across the country, even as far away as Assam and Tamil Nadu. Other selected states include Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan.
“They would arrive on commercial flights and that is why some time is needed to make arrangements,” the official added.
Additional personnel from paramilitary forces have also been dispatched and will arrive in the coming days, the official said, adding that housing arrangements were being arranged.
This comes a day after Interior Minister Amit Shah and Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met to map out a strategy to suppress the Covid wave and tighten protocols to guard against future spikes.
Earlier today, Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, officials from ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research, the nodal body of the government in this crisis), DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization) and the Delhi government met to ensure the smooth implementation of that strategy.
Amit Shah, after the meeting, tweeted a list of 12 points that had been discussed at the time.
The list included increasing the number of oxygen beds in Delhi by adding a 10,000 bed facility in the Chattarpur area. Currently, the Sardar Patel Covid Care Center and Hospital, only 10 percent of these beds have oxygen.
Other steps announced after the Amit Shah-Arvind Kejriwal meeting include making 300 more ICU beds available at the DRDO hospital in Delhi’s Dhaula Kuan, doubling the number of RT-PCR tests performed daily (currently between 18,000 and 19,000 ) and a house – Home survey.
Also, some hospitals of the Delhi municipal corporation will be converted into dedicated COVID centers. The teams will visit all hospitals to ensure the availability of the Covid infrastructure.
This is the second major intervention, after June, by Amit Shah to handle the Covid crisis in Delhi.
On Wednesday, thanks to a steadily rising daily count, Delhi posted its biggest increase in a single day: 8,593 cases were recorded. A day later, the majority of Covid-related deaths were recorded in one day in more than five months.
Last month, the National Center for Disease Control warned the Delhi government of around 15,000 new cases a day; This takes into account concerns about a lack of social distancing during the holiday season and winter-related respiratory problems.
Delhi has reported more than 4.85 lakh of Covid cases so far, of which more than 7,600 are deaths related to the virus. The number of active cases, which was once below 11,000, has now skyrocketed to nearly 40,000.
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