New Delhi: Two more people from Delhi have tested positive for Covid-19, taking the total number of cases recorded in the city to 10. Another person under treatment for the disease has been discharged, according to Delhi’s health department. A total of three persons have now recovered, and one has died of the disease.
One of the persons who tested positive on Wednesday was a 22-year-old woman from north Delhi’s Rana Pratap Bagh area. She had returned from London four days ago. The other person who tested positive is a 38-year-old woman from north-east Delhi’s Dilshad Garden. She had travelled to Saudi Arabia and came back last week.
Both the patients were admitted to Safdarjung hospital.
HT had yesterday reported that the person whose sample tested positive on Tuesday had left for Singapore before the reports came back. Samples of his parents, who live in their Saket home, have been collected.
The 27-year-old Paytm employee who had tested positive after returning from his holiday in Italy has recovered and been discharged, according to officials from Delhi’s health department. He is the third Covid-19 patient from Delhi to have recovered.
He had passed on the infection to his wife’s cousin, a 25-year-old woman from Tri Nagar. She continues to be under treatment at Safdarjung hospital, where a patient suspected to have Covid-19 also killed himself on Wednesday.
{{/usCountry}}He had passed on the infection to his wife’s cousin, a 25-year-old woman from Tri Nagar. She continues to be under treatment at Safdarjung hospital, where a patient suspected to have Covid-19 also killed himself on Wednesday.
{{/usCountry}}The hospital has created a 75-bed isolation facility with nine ventilators on five of the eight floors of their new super speciality building, away from the main hospital block. A team of 12 specialists, 30 resident doctors, 40 nurses, and around 100 sanitation staff have been manning the block in shifts; they do not work in the main hospital for now, to reduce chances of infection.
Preparing for a surge in the number of cases, Safdarjung hospital discharged 14 suspected cases of Covid-19 after their tests came back negative.
“There has been a change in the ministry policy now. We usually get the high-risk patients here. Earlier, we used to keep them in isolation for 14 days and test again for Covid-19 before discharging them. But, now to free up space, we are discharging all those who have tested negative twice. They will have to remain in home quarantine for 14 days. We expect a surge in the number of cases,” said Dr Balvinder Singh, medical superintendent of Safdarjung hospital, which has treated over 131 suspected and positive cases so far.
The hospital has also cancelled all its elective or planned, non-emergency surgeries Thursday onwards to free up resources — beds and manpower.
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) across the road has requested all its patients to delay visiting the hospital if they do not need treatment immediately, to reduce overcrowding in hospital.
“To stop overcrowding, we have requested patients who can, to postpone their visit and seek re-appointment after three weeks. This information has been shared on SMS with all patients. The patients who go to the OPD have now been given mobile numbers where they can call for follow-ups,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS.
At the Delhi-government run Lok Nayak hospital, where around 19 suspected Covid-19 cases have been admitted in the isolation ward, the timings for out-patient registration has been reduced from four hours to 1.5 hours from Wednesday to reduce the crowds.
“Today, the hospital was crowded as usual. This may be because people were not aware of the restrictions. We might see a decline tomorrow onwards. If the numbers do not go down, we have to bring in more restrictions. But social distancing is something that the patients have to follow themselves. We keep informing them but it is not really being followed,” said Dr Kishore Singh, medical director, Lok Nayak hospital.