Capital’s positivity rate came down to 21.67% during the period
The national Capital may be struggling to get its quota of oxygen from the Centre, but timely lockdown seemed to have saved Delhi from a much bigger catastrophe.
When the first lockdown was imposed on April 26, Delhi had a positivity rate of 35 per cent, which come down to 21.67 per cent on Sunday. The lockdown has really worked.
Delhi recorded 273 coronavirus deaths on Sunday, the lowest since April 21. The 13,336 fresh cases recorded on Sunday meant a huge dip in the incidence of the Covid-19 infection.
Health expert said the timely lockdown did not only help the Government to break the chain, it also put all the available resources to tackle the disease effectively.
The Delhi Government has used the lockdown period to strengthen the health services to tackle the pandemic. It has added more than 12,000 beds in hospitals during the period and 1,200 oxygen beds will be added by May 10, of which 500 oxygen beds’ facility will be set up at Ramlila Maidan opposite Lok Nayak Hospital.
Further, 500 oxygen beds will be added in GTB Hospital while 200 ICU beds will be added in Radha Soami Satsang Beas Covid Care Centre.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said, “We have used this lockdown period to strengthen our health resources and infrastructure. New oxygen beds were prepared in many places.”
“The biggest problem that Delhi faced was shortage of oxygen. In the past few days, the oxygen situation has improved following the directions by the Supreme Court and High Court and Centre’s help. Now, we are not facing a situation like only two hours of oxygen are left in one hospital and someone dying because of shortage of oxygen. We have made several attempts during the lockdown to improve our own system,” he added.
It is significant that Delhi’s Covid positivity rate has fallen each day during last few days. At the beginning of this month, May 1 recorded a 31.6 positivity rate, which came down to 28.3 on May 2, followed by a positivity rate of 29.6 on May 3. On May 4, the positivity rate stood at 26.7, on the fifth, this was 26.4 per cent, on May 6, it was 24.29 and on May 9 it further came down to 21.67 per cent.
On April 26, Delhi conducted around 57,690 tests with positivity rate stand at 35 per cent and around 20,201 people tested positive. On May 9, Delhi conducted around 61,552 tests with the positivity rate dipped to less than 22 per cent and 13,336 people tested positive for Covid-19. These numbers show that during these 14 days, there has been a marked drop in the case positivity rate in the national capital of India.
In order to avert the crisis in hospitals, the Government has created SOS reserve from where we supply oxygen responding to various hospitals keep sending SOS alert to the Delhi Government. Hundreds of hospitals have been provided oxygen responding to their SOS calls and not even a single untoward incident happened after that.
A senior Government official said a team of officers is working 24 x 7 to monitor the status of demand and supply of the oxygen in the national Capital.
“Real time monitoring of oxygen tankers is being done by the team formed by the Government to mitigate the challenges and obstacles in the supply chain management of the oxygen in the national Capital. The Delhi Government has also deputed a team of officers to each of the oxygen plant locations to make sure that there are no glitches and any administrative obstacles in the oxygen supply,” he said.
The Government has also distributed more than 2,000 cylinders from May 7 for the home isolation patients needing the oxygen supply. It also set up174 hunger relief centers across the city to make sure that the poor and needy are being given food on a daily basis.
During these days, the Delhi Government has not only ramped up testing but also worked relentlessly in increasing the number of beds across Delhi.
The Government is also giving an aggressive push to the vaccination drive, which will further help bring down the positivity rate in the coming days.
