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Nearly 4,000 new Covid-19 cases take Delhi tally past 66,600
Coronavirus cases have been rising in Delhi at a fast clip amid a race by officials to add capacity to city’s medical infrastructure.
Delhi on Tuesday recorded the highest single-day hike with nearly 4,000 fresh Covid-19 cases registered in the last 24 hours to take the coronavirus tally in the capital to 66,602, according to data released by the health department. It also reported 68 new deaths in the same period, taking the death toll to 2,301 since the outbreak of the disease. The city-state currently has 24,988 active coronavirus cases.
The capital has also crossed 4 lakh tests conducted in the city to detect Covid-19 patients with tests conducted on 16,952 samples in the last 24 hours, according to the health bulletin.
Delhi is tasked with a major challenge to ramp up its medical infrastructure in the wake of the rising Covid cases, expected to cross 5.5 lakh by the end of July by one estimate, requiring close to 90,000 beds. The health bulletin on Tuesday didn’t give any information on the number of beds currently available at the disposal of the authorities for treatment of coronavirus patients.
The departure from normal practice comes on a day when the Union home minister Amit Shah and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal exchanged tweets over a new facility created for temporary use as a Covid-19 treatment centre.
It all started with Kejriwal requesting Amit Shah to inspect the facility with 10,000 beds and to deploy doctors and nurses from ITBP and Army to the facility. It invited a retort from Shah, who said that the decision to operationalise the centre had been taken three days ago in a meeting attended both by Shah and Kejriwal apart from other officials while taking stock of Delhi’s preparedness.
He also reminded the Delhi CM that the centre erected at Radha Swami Beas facility in south Delhi will be run by Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
“Dear Kejriwal ji, it has already been decided in our meeting three days back and MHA has assigned work of operating 10,000 bed COVID Care Centre at Radha Swami Beas in Delhi to ITBP. Work is in full swing and a large part of the facility will be operational by June 26,” Shah said in a tweet, which was seen as a counter to Kejriwal.
Shah also announced that another 1,000 bed hospital with 250 ICU beds was being prepared to be operationalised in the next 10 days. This facility, he added, will be managed by armed forces personnel.
An expert committee set up to aid the government’s Covid-19 containment efforts had earlier this month claimed that Delhi will need 15,000 beds by the end of June and around 42,000 by mid-July. It also estimated that the number of positive cases in Delhi will touch the 100,000 mark by the end of June.
