Covid-19: Delhi govt to hire 200 taxis to strengthen its ambulance services

On Saturday, Delhi recorded 591 new cases of Covid-19. The average number of daily cases has increased steadily in May, with the city recording over 500 cases each in the last five days.

The Delhi government has decided to hire 200 taxis from cab aggregators Ola and Uber to strengthen its ambulance service which is under pressure due to the coronavirus pandemic, news agency PTI reported.

A man checks the Scan & Fly kiosks, after the government allowed domestic flight services to resume from coming Monday, during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease, at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, in New Delhi on Saturday. (Reuters Photo)

The hired taxis - 110 from Ola and 91 from Uber - will be used for carrying non-critical and non-Covid-19 patients to and from hospitals, PTI quoted from a Delhi government order.

The taxis to be used as ambulance vehicles will be placed under the CATS director who is responsible for managing the Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) ambulances.

The national capital, meanwhile, added 23 more deaths due to Covid-19 on Saturday, taking the toll to 231, even as 591 fresh cases increased the tally to 12,910, according to official data.

The fresh fatalities put the mortality rate of the disease in Delhi at about 1.8 per cent, up from the one per cent on May 11. The figure remains lower than the national average of three per cent.

An order by Delhi chief secretary Vijay Dev on May 10 directed all designated Covid-19 hospitals to report the deaths by 5pm each day to ensure timely reporting. This was done after discrepancies in the cumulative data and deaths recorded at the hospitals were pointed out.

The average number of daily cases has increased steadily in May, with the city recording over 500 cases each in the last five days.

Even as Delhi is recording a high number of cases, the doubling rate - an indicator of the pace of spread of the infection - has gone up to about 15 days.

Of the 6,412 infections active currently, 1,886 people with severe symptoms have been admitted to designated Covid-19 hospitals. Of them, 184 are in intensive care units, with 27 people on ventilators.