Amid rising number of Covid-19 cases on New Delhi, the AAP government held a meeting with the Centre, and a slew of measures were announced to tackled the surge.
NDTV reported that it was decided after a meeting between home minister Amit Shah and Delhi chief minister Arivnd Kejriwal that the government would provide more ICU beds, oxygen cylinders and more medical staff.
On Sunday, Delhi recorded 3,235 fresh Covid cases, taking the total number of cases reported from the national capital to 4.85 lakh. The death toll stood at 7,614 after 95 people died.
Kejriwal was quoted by NDTV as saying, “The Centre has assured that 750 ICU beds will be made available at the DRDO center. The number of COVID-19 tests conducted daily to be increased to over 1 lakh.”
It was planned that the daily PCR tests would be doubled and house-to-house surveys would be carried out across the city.
PTI reported that doctors, paramedics of paramilitary forces will be flown in to be deployed in the national capital to deal with the shortage of medical staff.
Home Minister Amit Shah said that some of the hospitals under the municipal corporations of Delhi will also be converted to Covid-19 hospitals to deal with the rising number of cases.
Shah took to Twitter and shared 12 tweets, elaborating on what the government plans.
He said mobile testing vans will be placed in areas where there are high number of Covid-19 cases.
Shah said measures like identifying containment zones and carrying out contact tracing will begin again.
Delhi has seen a rise in Covid-19 cases in the run up to Diwali. Experts have said that there are multiple reasons for a surge in the cases.
Vikas Bajpai, Assistant Professor at Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, told HuffPost India, “With respect to Delhi, pollution and early onset of winter have certainly contributed to the problem immensely, buttressed as they are by factors such as greater opening of the economy, slackening of guard on part of the people and the public health system, leading to decline in preventive health measures.”