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The COVID-19 situation in the national capital, New Delhi, is grim with the city recording 8,521 new cases and 39 deaths in the past 24 hours. In light of this, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that the state government is not planning a lockdown in the national capital. However, he indicated that the government is likely to put some more restrictions in the coming days.
"Lockdown is not an option. However, we will be putting some restrictions in place to contain the spread of the virus. The Delhi government will issue some new restrictions in the coming few days," Kejriwal said after a review meeting with senior doctors at LNJP Hospital on Saturday.
The chief minister further stated there has been a sharp increase in new COVID-19 cases across the nation, including Delhi. "We need to simultaneously spearhead an aggressive vaccination campaign and also put in place measures that can effectively contain the spread of the virus along with making hospital management equally effective," Kejriwal added.
He further said that the national capital is facing the fourth wave of Coronavirus. The last wave was in November after which the cases had gone down in Delhi and the health agencies began to go lax. "It is imperative that they regain their momentum and begin to function in the same efficient manner that they did, which helped contain the spread of the virus," Kejriwal said.
Ankit Gupta, a senior doctor at LNJP who is also in-charge of administration, told IANS that out of 2000 beds in the hospital, 1500 have been reserved for Covid-19 infected patients while 500 are non-Covid beds. "We have not suspended non-Covid services here so far but if the situation demands, a further decision may be taken in the coming days," he added.
According to the Health Ministry, India has reported 1,45,384 new Covid-19 cases and 794 deaths in the last 24 hours. India is now the fourth-worst Covid-hit country worldwide after the number of active cases rose to 10,46,631. The death toll stood at 1,68,436 the Health Ministry said. A total of 77,567 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the number of recoveries to 1,19,90,859 with a recovery rate of 90.80 per cent. The Health Ministry said that a total of 11,73,219 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. So far, 25,52,14,803 samples have been tested. A total of 34,15,055 people were vaccinated in the last 24 hours taking the total vaccination count to 9,80,75,160.
(With inputs from IANS)