The Delhi government is making arrangements to handle 1 lakh Covid-19 cases if the situation arises, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday amid the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Kejriwal made the statement after reviewing the Covid situation in the national Capital at a meeting with his ministers and senior officials.
“Currently, we only have the capacity to handle 1,100 cases per day and we are increasing it to the capacity of 1 lakh cases so that even if we have to visit 1 lakh homes everyday, we will be able to do it,” the chief minister said at a briefing.
Kejriwal said that the Omicron variant has high transmissibility but the infections are mild, causing less hospitalisations and deaths.
He said that considering the rapid spread of the new variant, Delhi will conduct 3 lakh tests daily if needed.
Noting that Omicron cases are mild, the chief minister urged residents to stay at home and not rush to hospitals. He said the Delhi government was strengthening its home isolation module so that patients can be treated at their homes.
He explained that as soon as authorities confirm that a person is infected, the patient will be informed. The next day, Kejriwal said, a medical team will visit the person’s home and give him a kit containing medicines, instructions and an oximeter. From then on, doctors will consult the patient everyday through call, he added.
The chief minister noted that for strengthening the home isolation module, manpower will be needed.
“For this, we will hire all the agencies required in one or two days and I have given orders for this,” he said.
Kejriwal said that his government was stocking medicines for up to two months and also arranging for oxygen. He pointed out that during the second coronavirus wave, there was a dearth in oxygen supply.
“Last time, the biggest problem was that even if the central government was allotting us oxygen from other states, we did not have trucks to transport it as the Delhi government does not need such vehicles,” he added. “But this time, 15 oxygen tankers will be delivered to us in the next three days.”
Delhi has so far detected 64 cases of the Omicron variant, according to the Union health ministry’s update on Thursday. However, Delhi Health Minister Sateyndar Jain had contested the tally on Wednesday, saying it was wrong and the infection count of the variant in the national Capital was less.
On Wednesday, Delhi recorded 125 new coronavirus cases, taking the infection count in the city to 14,42,515 since the pandemic began last year. This is the highest number of daily Covid-19 cases recorded in the national Capital in six months.
The city did not record any new deaths. The toll stood at 25,102.
The earlier highest single-day infection count was recorded on June 22 when the city reported 134 new Covid-19 cases.
The daily positivity rate stood at 0.2%. The test positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for a virus out of those who have been tested overall.
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