For the second time after June, Interior Minister Amit Shah oversaw a vigorous central intervention in Delhi, with a review meeting with the prime minister. Arvind kejriwal resulting in detailed instructions on intensifying testing, increasing the capacity of city hospitals, a review of containment strategies, and applying appropriate Covid behavior. The Center’s presentation drew attention to the people who crowd markets and public places. “The impact of crowds in the markets and elsewhere could show up in about 10-15 days,” said a source.
To compensate for the shortage of medical personnel in Delhi, the Center decided to provide CAPFs with doctors and paramedical personnel, who will soon be flown to Delhi. Dedicated teams from various departments will visit all private hospitals in Delhi to check the availability of the Covid-19 medical infrastructure in regards to admission status and to make sure the correct position of the beds is displayed. Some designated MCD hospitals will also become dedicated facilities for the treatment of Covid-19, especially for those with milder symptoms.
While the flow of people traveling to and from Delhi makes controlling Covid a challenge, the meeting considered the need to improve contact tracing and suggested a new survey of containment zones in the city. Given the alarming neglect of public behavior, a new campaign to urge appropriate behavior from Covid is likely to be launched soon.
After the meeting, Kejriwal said: “We are confident that all government agencies, both central government and state government, will work together to address the Covid-19 situation in Delhi.”
Delhi has witnessed between 7,000 and 8,000 new Covid-19 cases per day for the past 10 days and around 90 deaths a day for the past week, with 104 people succumbing to Covid-19 on Thursday, the highest number in a only day to date. . Kejriwal said 750 ICU beds would be added to the city’s capacity.
“It was also decided at the meeting that the number of tests in Delhi will increase from 60,000 per day to 1 lakh or 1.25 lakh. The Delhi government facilities are working at full capacity at the moment, therefore the ICMR has ensured that they will help us increase the number of tests, ”Kejriwal said.
Shah posted a series of tweets to highlight the main decisions made at the meeting, outlining the new strategy. There will be a greater deployment of mobile test vans of the Ministry of Health or ICMR in areas with high risk of infection, while the beds of the ICU in the DRDO Covid-19 facility in Dhaula kuan More beds with oxygen facilities will be used and provided at the 10,000-bed Chhatarpur Covid center.
The meeting on Sunday was attended by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi LG Anil Baijal, Niti Aayog member VK Paul, AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria, ICMR Director General Dr. Balram Bhargava and senior officials from DRDO and the Armed Forces Medical Services and senior officials from the Ministries of Home and Health and the Delhi government.
A presentation by Paul noted that while the case fatality rate (CFR) was still under control despite the recent increase in cases, medical and healthcare infrastructure such as dedicated Covid-19 beds, ventilator beds, and ICUs, they showed signs of tension. Consequently, it was essential to improve surveillance, strictly enforce containment measures, increase testing and rapidly build the necessary medical infrastructure, the presentation added.
At the meeting, Shah ordered that the testing capacity for RT-PCR testing be doubled through the optimal utilization of the laboratories in Delhi and the use of mobile test laboratories in areas where poor and vulnerable sections reside, temporarily relocating the laboratories. of testing states where capacity was not utilized and utilizing in neighboring Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon. This was considered essential to reduce the positivity rate in Delhi.
Shah ordered the addition of 250-300 ICU beds to the DRDO Covid hospital in Dhaula Kuan, which already has 250 ICU beds, of which only 150 are used. In addition, more oxygen beds will be created at the Chhatarpur Covid center of 10,000 beds.
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