‘30,000 oxygen beds, 10,000 ICU’: Kejriwal’s plan to tackle omicron Covid variant

The AAP supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has repeatedly urged the Centre as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi for banning of flights from countries affected with the omicron Covid-19 variant.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday laid down measures that the Union territory's government would adopt in order to tackle the omicron variant of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) if it reaches to the national capital.

AAP supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said his government is ready if omicron Covid-19 variant is detected in the city. (File Photo / PTI)

This comes following the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo’s appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop flights from affected countries to check the omicron variant from entering India.

On Monday, Kejriwal took to Twitter to reiterate his demand, asking what is the reason behind the delay in restricting international flights. “Even in the first wave, we had delayed stopping foreign flights. Most of the foreign flights come to Delhi, Delhi gets affected the most. PM sahib please stop flights immediately,” his tweet in Hindi read.

Earlier in the day, Kejriwal held a review meeting with government departments to take stock of the capital’s preparedness for combatting omicron Covid-19 variant and a possible third wave. During the press conference, the chief minister said that as many as 6,800 ICU beds are under construction and will be ready by February 2022, following which nearly 17,000 ICU beds will be present in Delhi.

He further stated that telemetry devices have been directed to be installed in all oxygen tanks across the national capital, which will help in checking the availability of oxygen in each tank on a real-time basis. Kejriwal added that the Delhi government is “ready” if omicron Covid-19 variant is detected in the city.

Here’s a list of all steps that Delhi government have taken to tackle omicron Covid-19 variant:

1. The Delhi government has prepared a total of 30,000 oxygen beds, of which, 10,000 account for ICU beds. As many as 6,800 beds are under construction additionally and will be ready by February.
2. Kejriwal said that his government will be able to prepare 100 oxygen beds in every municipal ward of national capital at two-weeks’ notice. Therefore, 27,000 oxygen beds can be prepared at a short notice in all the 270 wards of the city.
3. Delhi has around 750 MT oxygen capacity, and in order to combat the third wave and the omicron Covid-19 variant, an extra storage capacity of 442 ML has been prepared.
4. Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants have been installed in Delhi, which have commenced to generate 121 MT oxygen in the city itself – something that was missing in the capital during the second wave of Covid-19 outbreak.
5. Telemetry devices will be installed in all oxygen tanks in Delhi in order to check the availability of oxygen on a real-time basis.
6. The Delhi government has imported as many as 6,000 oxygen cylinders from China, and has three private refilling plants, which can fill 1,500 cylinders each day. Moreover, Kejriwal said that his government has also set up two bottling plants that can fill 1,400 cylinders regularly.
7. The chief minister noted that the Delhi government is ordering 32 kinds of medicines to create a two-month buffer stock, and is also training manpower if the omicron variant comes to Delhi.