Shah announces slew of measures for Delhi
OUTBREAK After meeting home minister, Kejriwal says will fight virus together
NEWDELHI: The Centre on Sunday announced series of measures to control the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Delhi, including conducting a comprehensive door-to-door health survey in all containment zones, doubling the testing capacity in the next two days followed by t hree- f old increase within weeks, earmarking 500 railway coaches with 8,000 beds and asking private hospitals to earmark 60% of the hospital beds for Covid-19 patients at lesser rates as well as formation of two committees to look into the health infrastructure situation in the city.
The decisions were taken at a high-level emergency meeting between Union home minister Amit Shah, lieutenant governor of Delhi Anil Baijal, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, deputy CM Manish Sisodia and senior officers at North Block on Sunday morning. Coronavirus cases in Delhi – which has been reporting at least 2,000 daily new infections for the last two days -are set to touch 40,000 on Sunday.
The meeting also comes days after the Supreme Court had termed the condition of Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital as “pathetic” and its wards as “deplorable”.
Shah, in a series of tweets, listed the detailed plan for the prevention and containment strategy for Delhi, which also included joint inspection of health facilities and preparedness of Covid-19 dedicated hospitals by a team of doctors from the Union health ministry, Delhi government’s health department, AIIMS and the three municipal corporations in the city.
“The Modi government is determined t o prevent t he Corona infection in Delhi. To stop the spread of virus, testing will be doubled in the next two days and after six days the testing will be increased three-fold. Subsequently, after a few days, every polling station in the con
BEIJING: Sinovac Biotech Ltd. said its coronavirus shot is safe and capable of eliciting an immune response from human trials, suggesting the shot’s potential in defending against infection of the coronavirus.
The Beijing-based company’s vaccine, called Coronavac, hasn’t caused severe side effects and more than 90% of people administered with the shot on a 14-day interval have induced neutralising antibodies two weeks after inoculation, Sinovac said in a press release on Sunday.
The preliminary findings come from phase I and II trials in China. A total of 743 healthy people ages 18 to 59 either received shots on two schedules or a placebo. More data will be uncovered from another group in the trial that received shots on a 28-day interval. Sinovac plans to publish its results in academic journals, according to a company spokesman.
Using a killed version of the coronavirus, Sinovac’s vaccine is among five Chinese experimental shots that have reached the crucial final stage of human testing.
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