Situation in Delhi is quite “serious” and “concerning” Arvind Kejriwal

NEW DELHI : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday gave a dire warning, saying that the city was fast running out of beds, oxygen and the life-saving drug Remdesivir as it recorded an unprecedented 24,000 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours.
“The situation is very serious and worrisome,” Mr Kejriwal said. “Cases have gone up really fast. That is why we are facing shortages even though everything seemed under control until a few days ago.
Delhi has reported nearly 24,000 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours and the case positivity rate has crossed 24 per cent. Case positive rate is the percentage of samples that test positive for a disease out of the total samples tested. This is the highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases for Delhi ever since the coronavirus pandemic began last year. Delhi has already surpassed Mumbai to become the worst-hit city in the country. In PPE kits, doctors and staff scrambled to treat Covid-19 patients, many of them waiting for hours in long queues and many others in ambulances.

Coffin in shape of mythical dragon and bull being burnt during mass cremation or locally called Ngaben rituals in the grave yard of Bayad Village in Tegallalang, Gianyar, Bali on September 25, 2019. A total of 59 bodies in the form of human skeletons that died several years ago were cremated simultaneously in order to ease the cost of the ceremony for local residents. (Photo by Johanes Christo/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Chief Minister said the situation in Delhi is quite “serious” and “concerning”, as Covid-19 cases are rising very rapidly. “Delhi has a limited number of ICU beds. Medical oxygen and ICU beds are decreasing very sharply. He said the government is however trying its best to increase the number of beds. “We have so far ensured that there was no shortage of beds in Delhi. We are taking some more decisions and I am hopeful that we will be able to increase the number significantly.” Kejriwal said in a video address. “Any health infrastructure has limitations.
I hope that we will be able to add 6,000 more beds in the next two to four days,” he said. Delhi led major cities across India into a weekend lockdown Saturday as the country confronts a fierce new coronavirus wave, with more than 2.3 lakh fresh daily cases that has left many states struggling for drugs and hospital beds.The positivity rate had reached a huge 24 per cent – meaning one in four of all people being tested were coming out positive, he said.
Apart from this, Kejriwal said the government is receiving complaints that labs are taking three-four days to give Covid-19 reports. He said the reason for this is that some labs have started collecting samples far beyond their testing capacity.”They have started taking samples three-four times their capacity. This will do harm to the people and the government will take action against labs that don’t give test results within 24 hours,” he said. Kejriwal added that the government will also act against hospitals that are feeding incorrect information about bed availability on the Delhi government’s mobile app because of which people are suffering.
Hopes that the country might have beaten the pandemic have been dashed with India seeing over 20 lakh new cases this month alone. The country added another record 2.34 lakh cases Saturday to pass 1.45 crore overall and 1,341 deaths took its pandemic total to 175,649 deaths.
(With Media Inputs}.