Kejriwal issues appeal for beds as 1 in 3 samples in Delhi is +ve

Delhi on Sunday reported 25,462 Covid-19 cases, with about one in three samples testing positive, as chief minister Arvind Kejriwal made an urgent appeal to the Centre for more hospital beds to tackle the public health crisis, adding that the shortage of oxygen supply in the Capital was now an “emergency”.

Delhi is the middle of its fourth Covid-19 wave, the worst to hit the national capital so far. On Sunday, the positivity rate was 29.74%, with 161 deaths being reported in the last 24 hours.

Fewer than 100 intensive care unit beds were available in the city of more than 20 million people, Kejriwal said, with widespread complaints about the lack of beds, oxygen cylinders and crucial drugs.

“The bigger worry is that in last 24 hours positivity rate has increased to around 30% from 24% ... The cases are rising very rapidly. The beds are filling fast,” Kejriwal told a digital news briefing.

The test positivity rate – a ratio of the number of positive cases to total tests conducted, and a measure of the scale of an outbreak in the region – shot up from 0.59% over a month ago, to 29.74% on Sunday.

In a separate statement, the Delhi government said it informed the Centre about “the dire need of beds and oxygen” and beds were now being set up in schools.

Kejriwal said Delhi was facing an “acute shortage” of oxygen for Covid-19 patients and added that the quota of the city was diverted to other states. The remarks came hours after he wrote the letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Del facing acute shortage of oxygen. In view of sharply increasing cases, Del needs much more than normal supply. Rather than increasing supply, our normal supply has been sharply reduced and Delhi’s quota has been diverted to other states. OXYGEN HAS BECOME AN EMERGENCY IN DEL,” the chief minister tweeted on Sunday evening. He also wrote a letter to Union commerce and industries minister Piyush Goyal in this regard.

The Union minister told ANI: “State governments should keep demand (for medical oxygen) under control.”