More ICU beds, testing  to deal with Delhi's COVID surge

New Delhi, November 15

With Delhi reeling from a fresh spike in COVID-19 cases, the Centre on Sunday announced a slew of steps including making available 300 additional ICU beds, double the number of daily RTPCR tests and a house-to-house survey in the entire national capital.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah also said some of the hospitals under the municipal corporations of Delhi will be converted into dedicated COVID hospitals.

Doctors and paramedics of paramilitary forces will be flown in to be deployed in the national capital to deal with the shortage of manpower.

The decisions were taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Shah and attended by Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan among others.

It was the second major intervention by Shah since June when he had stepped in and announced several steps to check the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital after criticism in different quarters of the Delhi government’s handling of the crisis.

Sunday’s meeting was convened in the wake of the rising number of cases, which is being called the ‘third wave’ of COVID-19, in Delhi and it noted the increasing strain on medical infrastructure in the city.

Scaling up tests, hospital capacity  

In a series of tweets in Hindi, Shah said daily RTPCR tests in Delhi will be doubled and the capacity of the testing laboratories will be enhanced.

He said mobile testing vans of the Union Health Ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will be deployed in the areas where the COVID-19 threat is high.

Currently, around 18,000 to 19,000 RTPCR tests are conducted daily in Delhi.

Shah said the meeting resolved to enhance the capacity of Delhi’s hospitals and in this direction, 300 ICU beds will be made available at the DRDO COVID hospital (Dhaula Kuan) in addition to the existing 250 ICU beds.

The home minister said to increase the number of oxygen beds, the 10,000-bedded Chhatarpur COVID care centre will be strengthened and some of the hospitals of the municipal corporations of Delhi will be converted into dedicated COVID hospitals.

After the meeting, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal, however, said around 750 ICU beds will be arranged at the DRDO centre and daily testing will be scaled up to 1-1.25 lakh in coming the days.

“The Centre has assured that in the next two days 500 ICU beds will be made available at the DRDO centre and after a few more days 250 more ICU beds will be arranged. So, around 750 ICU beds will be available there.”  

Kejriwal said another decision taken in the meeting was to scale up daily tests from around 60,000 (RTPCR and rapid antigen tests) to 1-1.25 lakh daily.

A home ministry statement said Shah directed the Health Ministry to make arrangements for requisite numbers of BIPAP machines and high flow nasal canulas to the Delhi government within the next two days.

House-to-house survey in the entire Delhi will be conducted by the teams of AIIMS, Delhi government and municipal corporations of Delhi and all the symptomatic persons found in the survey would be tested and provided the necessary treatment.

The health ministry will issue a standard protocol for plasma therapy and plasma administration for the treatment of COVID-19 patients immediately.

Mobile testing laboratories will be deployed by the health ministry and ICMR in areas where poor and vulnerable sections of the society reside, the statement said.

Dedicated multi-departmental teams will visit all the private hospitals in Delhi to physically check the availability of Covid-19 medical infrastructure vis-a-vis the admission status.

The meeting resolved that the Delhi government and Delhi Police will strictly enforce the necessary measures, especially wearing of face masks, so that there is no laxity in the observance of Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. It was presented in the meeting that the number of active cases per day has increased substantially but the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) continues to remain in control.

The health and medical infrastructure, such as dedicated Covid-19 beds, beds with ventilators, and ICUs, is already showing signs of strain, the statement said.

Accordingly, it is essential to enhance surveillance, strictly enforce containment measures, increase testing, and rapidly build up the requisite medical infrastructure, it said.

The government also decided to temporarily shift some testing laboratories from other parts of the country, where they are unutilised, to Delhi.

The home minister also emphasised that the entire set of containment measures instituted earlier should be reviewed continuously, so that there are no gaps in implementing these measures.

The officers considered, particularly those at district levels, would be personally responsible for ensuring compliance in this regard, and any deviation observed in this regard would be viewed seriously.

Shah said that the situation of COVID-19 in Delhi, as also in the neighbouring areas of the National Capital Region (NCR), would be reviewed on a continuous basis over the coming weeks.

No restrictions yet

Kejriwal said there was no discussion in the meeting on possible restrictions in Delhi in view of the rising COVID-19 cases, and added the home ministry will perhaps hold a meeting in this regard on Monday.

On November 2, a meeting convened by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla had attributed the third surge in coronavirus cases in Delhi to festivals and a greater movement of people, accompanied by laxity in adhering to the basic principles of COVID-appropriate behaviour.

The national capital had recorded its highest single-day spike of 8,593 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. On Thursday, 104 fatalities, the highest in a day in over five months, were recorded.

According to the health bulletin issued on Saturday, the tally of active cases rose to 44,456 in the national capital while the recovery rate stood at over 89 per cent. The number of containment zones in Delhi was 4,288 as on Saturday.

The National Centre for Disease Control, in a report drafted recently, had warned that Delhi needed to be prepared for about 15,000 fresh COVID-19 cases per day, taking into account the winter-related respiratory problems, a large influx of patients from outside and festive gatherings.

In June, when the number of COVID-19 cases was on the rise in Delhi, there were complaints of non-availability of beds in hospitals and difficulty in getting tests done in laboratories.

Leading from the front, the home minister ensured that the facilities were augmented by increasing the numbers of daily testing, hospital beds and setting up of temporary hospitals and COVID care centre.

A committee set up by Shah also fixed the rates for testing, beds in private hospitals, ICUs and isolation beds. --- PTI