Delhi govt using ‘five weapons’ in fight against virus: Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: Acknowledging that the spike in Covid-19 cases in Delhi after the lockdown ended had been steeper than he anticipated, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday that his government’s strategy to tackle pandemic has been to increase the number of hospital beds and ensure timely oxygen supply for people infected by the virus, ramp up testing, expand plasma therapy trials and screen every household for symptoms of the disease.

Delhi added 2,948 cases of the disease on Saturday, taking the total to 80,188, of whom 2,558 have died.

At a digital press conference, Kejriwal said the Delhi government was using “five weapons” in the fight against the coronavirus disease in the capital, where he traced the start of the outbreak to the arrival of 35,000 people from other countries in March. The chief minister added that it was a conscious decision by his government not to impose another lockdown in the city because it was not a “long-term solution”.

The first weapon, he said, was increasing the number of Covid-19 beds across the city. Kejriwal said Delhi now has around 13,500 beds available, of which nearly 7,500 were vacant as of Saturday. He said Covid deaths increased in Delhi sometime around the first week of June because people were struggling to get a hospital bed in the city.

“But, now there is no such problem. We will continue to augment beds even if they are lying vacant, so we are prepared for any kind of emergency,” he said.

“In the past one month, we scaled up the availability of Covid-19 beds in the city’s hospitals. Our first decision was to reserve at least 40% beds in all major hospitals of Delhi for Covid patients. Second decision was to convert some government and private hospitals into dedicated Covid facilities. Thirdly, we attached several hotels to hospitals. The hotels were against the move and went to court. We won the legal battle and now 3,500 beds are ready in various hotels across Delhi,” Kejriwal said.

He said another 2,000 beds are now available at a temporary Covid facility in south Delhi’s Radha Saomi Satsang Beas Centre. The facility will have over 10,000 beds for Covid-19 patients.

In addition to this, the government is also readying 450 beds at its hospital at Burari which has a total capacity of 1,500 beds.

The second weapon, Kejriwal said was testing. Compared to first week of June, when around 5,000 Covid tests per day were being conducted in Delhi, testing has increased by four times, government data showed. The CM said Delhi is currently doing over 20,000 tests per day, which is the highest in the country.

“We are aggressively testing people in every nook and corner of the city and the positive or suspected ones are being isolated. I want to thank the Central government for allowing us to do rapid antigen tests and providing the first batch of kits. Now Delhi government has on its own purchased six lakh antigen detection kits,” he said.

The third weapon, Kejriwal said, was providing pulse oximeters to every Covid patient under home isolation. He also reiterated the government’s decision to provide oxygen concentrators to every district so it can be sent to a patient’s home if his or her health deteriorates. “Our goal is to equip ever Covid bed in the city with an oxygen concentrator. We have procured around 4,000 oxygen concentrators,” he said.

The fourth weapon, he said, was plasma therapy. Delhi was the first city in the country to start trials of plasma therapy, using the blood plasma of recovered Covid-19 patiets. It does not help serious patients, but plasma therapy has quickened the recovery of patients with moderate symptoms of the coronavirus disease, Kejriwal said.

On Friday, the chief minister had said that the therapy helped reduce the death rate by more than 50% in Lok Nayak Hospital.

Eight hospitals in Delhi are conducting plasma therapy trials.

They include Lok Nayak, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, which come under the Central government, and five prominent private hospitals.

Lastly, Kejriwal said his government was relying on surveys and screening to curb the pandemic. “We will take it (the survey) to every home in Delhi to check the extent to which this virus has spread. It will help us decide our future course of action,” he said.

Three major tasks are currently underway in Delhi which include a house-to-house survey to identify people with symptoms, a serological survey which started on Saturday and redrawing of the perimeters of the containment zones in the city.

“Increasing the bed strength and testing or providing pulse oximeters are important steps, but the focus is still on infrastructure and purchase. What about the human resource? If the government wants the PGs to work, they have to be given some incentive,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, head of the department of community medicine at Safdarjung hospital.

CM ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE SPIKE IN CASES AFTER THE LOCKDOWN ENDED WAS STEEPER THAN ANTICIPATED