Delhi gasps for oxygen amid 28k new infections
The national capital has also reported precariously low levels of crucial drugs and critical care beds
Delhi on Tuesday sounded the alarm over exacerbating shortage of oxygen, a crucial tool in the fight against the worsening Covid-19 crisis, as chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said some hospitals were left with only a few hours of life-saving supplies, and appealed to the Centre to urgently boost deliveries to prevent the health care system from being overrun.
The national capital, which is under a lockdown to control the alarming transmission of the infectious disease, has reported precariously low levels of oxygen, crucial drugs and critical care beds. On Sunday, Kejriwal said the oxygen shortage in Delhi had turned into an “emergency”.
“Serious oxygen crisis persists in Delhi. I again urge the Centre to urgently provide oxygen to Delhi. Some hospitals are left with just a few hours of oxygen,” Kejriwal tweeted shortly after holding a review meeting with deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, health minister Satyendar Jain and several senior government officials.
Medical oxygen is a critical medical intervention against Covid-19, which causes respiratory distress in some cases, and the pandemic has accelerated the global demand for it. The need for oxygen has increased to 1.1 million cylinders in low to middle-income countries alone, according to the World Health Organization.
Sisodia said there will be chaos in the city if the stocks are not replenished by Wednesday morning. He posted a note on Twitter mentioning the status of oxygen stocks in various hospitals. According to the note, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Burari Hospital, Ambedkar Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Hospital, BL Kapoor Hospital and Max Hospital in Patparganj were among those that had only “eight to 12 hours of oxygen left”.
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said its oxygen stock was to last till 1am. The hospital has 485 Covid-19 beds, of which 475 are occupied. “6,000 cubic metres of it is left, which at the rate of current consumption will last till 1am. Need urgent replenishment,” its chairman DS Rana said.
With Delhi logging more than 100,000 Covid-19 cases over the past four days, the strain on the Capital’s oxygen supply continued to grow, with several hospitals having to discharge Covid-19 patients, restrict new admissions, and cancel routine surgeries.
Daily cases of Covid continued to soar as the city recorded its biggest single day spike of 28,395 new infections, pushing the total number of confirmed cases past 900,000. This was the fifth time in the past week that the city has set a new single-day case record. The seven-day average of daily cases in Delhi is now 22,198. This number, which denotes a region’s case curve, was just 9,299 a week ago – a growth of nearly 140% in just one week. If this rate of growth continues for one more week, then Delhi appears set to breach the 50,000 mark for daily cases.
Average testing positivity rate – the proportion of tests that return positive for Covid-19, which serves as a good barometer for an expanding outbreak – has touched 24.2%. This means that one out of every four samples tested in the past week has come back positive. At a daily level, the positivity rate is soaring even higher – it has nearly sextupled in just two weeks. On Tuesday, 32.8% samples tested came back positive, against 4.9% of all samples on April 6. In early February, this number had to dropped a low of 0.2%.
Underlining the efforts by his government to tackle the crisis, the Delhi CM tweeted: “We are working on a war footing to ensure oxygen supply in Delhi, and are also talking to the central government. An increase in the number of oxygen beds is happening on a large scale.”
The chief minister said the government was purchasing medical oxygen from Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to meet the shortage. He also directed officials to increase the number of beds with oxygen facilities for Covid-19 patients across hospitals.
Deputy CM Sisodia tweeted: “All hospitals are sending SOS calls regarding oxygen supply. Suppliers are being stopped in different states. The Centre has to stay sensitive and active to ensure that there is no jungle raj among states regarding oxygen supply.”