Hospital beds free up, Delhi goes easy on plan to create more temporary facilities
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The Delhi government has eased up on creating more temporary Covid care centres (CCCS) across the national capital, as new cases continued to decline on Monday, resulting in more hospital beds freeing up for those in need of them.
Delhi on Monday recorded less than 5,000 new Covid-19 cases for the first time in nearly 42 days. A total of 4,524 new cases were recorded in the national capital in the past 24 hours, pushing the cumulative tally to 1,398,391, the health bulletin said.
The positivity rate -- the proportion of samples returning positive among the total tested -- dropped further to 8.42% on Monday, which further underscores the trend that the outbreak is receding.
A day earlier, Delhi’s positivity rate was 10.4%. Last month, the positivity rate at one point crossed 35%. The daily death toll, however, rose from 262 recorded on Sunday to 340 on Monday, as per the health bulletin.
Going by the steep spike in Covid-19 cases in the city during the two-week period between April 18 and May 1, when cases had averaged over 23,000 daily, the Delhi government chalked out a mega bed augmentation plan to create an additional 10,500 beds (including 1,000 ICU beds) for Covid-19 treatment.
Of these planned 10,500 beds, nearly 4,340 have either been made operational or were to be set up as on Monday.
But the occupancy in these temporary CCCS has fallen sharply because of increased bed availability in hospitals.
At the peak of the crisis, only 13.6% of Delhi’s Covid-19 beds were empty (16,942 occupied and 2,666 vacant) on April 20, according to figures -- in reality, most people said they were unable to find beds. Six days later, the city completely ran out of ICU beds, data showed.
On Monday, however, Delhi had 11,696 Covid-19 beds vacant of the total of 27,560 beds. The city also had 877 of 6,575 ICU beds available, as per the Delhi government’s Corona app.
“A 1,000-bed facility was being built on war footing in north Delhi’s Burari area, on the campus of Sawan Kirpal Ruhani Mission. The facility will be ready by this week, but its opening has been put on hold for now. We are keeping everything ready so that in case there’s a new wave or a sudden spike in cases, we will just need to organise the medical staff and the facility will be ready overnight,” said a senior government official, asking not to be named.
The official clarified that this facility is separate from the other 1,000-bed Covid care centre that was opened on May 3 at the ashram of Sant Nirankari Samagam in Burari. As on Monday, 142 of the 1,000 beds were occupied in that facility.
The Yamuna Sports Complex CCC, for example, has 800 operational Covid-19 beds of which only 65 were occupied as on Monday.
“Until three to four weeks ago, this centre was jam-packed like all other facilities in the city. But, now there are barely three to five admissions daily. If cases surge again, we can expand this centre to 1,000 beds anytime; everything is ready,” said a senior official of the Shahdara district that manages the centre, asking not to be named.
Similarly, the 460-bed CCC at Commonwealth Games Village has 460 operational beds of which only 63 were occupied as on Monday. This centre was also scheduled to increase its total beds to 1,000. The expansion has been put on hold for now.
The Sardar Patel CCC, built in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur on the campus of Radha Saomi Satsang Beas, was planned to accommodate 5,000 beds, but that too has been put on hold for now. “At least 500 beds are operational now and we have another 500 ready. But the occupancy has decreased. If needed, we can scale up to 5,000 beds in phases. But that is not required at the moment,” said one of the managers of the facility, requesting not to be named. Around three weeks ago, people were queuing up for hours and even days outside this centre to get admitted. A few families had even said that their Covid-positive loved one had died while endlessly waiting to be admitted.
Apart from the above mentioned CCCS, the 1,000 ICU beds at two centres built on Ramlila grounds in east and central Delhi have also been made operational.
With the number of cases on decline and the pressure on hospitals reducing, doctors say that they are able to take better care of patients.
“The mortality was very high in the initial phase of the current wave because hospitals were overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients. The doctors and nurses had no time to constantly monitor each patient. That has improved now,” said a senior doctor from a big private hospital, asking not to be named.
OFFICIALS SAY THEY ARE KEEPING THINGS READY TO ENABLE QUICK DEPLOYMENT IN CASE OF A NEW WAVE OR A SUDDEN SPIKE IN CASES