Delhi has so far reported over 4.85 lakh coronavirus cases (File)
New Delhi:
Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) doctors and paramedics will be airlifted to Delhi to help contain a new wave of coronavirus cases in the nation’s capital, Interior Ministry officials said Monday evening. , after numerous meetings with different branches of the armed forces. A senior ministry official said 75 doctors and 250 paramedics will be deployed “as soon as possible” to help Delhi’s medical staff tackle the increase in Covid cases.
Staff are dispatched from CAPF units across the country, including as far as Assam and Tamil Nadu. Other states operated include Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan.
“They would arrive on commercial flights and that is why some time is needed to make arrangements,” added the official.
Additional personnel have also been sent by paramilitary forces and these will arrive in the coming days, the official said, adding that living conditions were being organized.
It comes a day after Home Secretary Amit Shah and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met to develop a strategy to end the Covid wave and tighten protocols to guard against future spikes .
Earlier today, Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, officials from the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization) and of the Delhi government have come together to ensure the successful implementation of this strategy.
Amit Shah, after the meeting, tweeted a list of 12 points that had been discussed at the time.
The list included increasing the number of oxygen beds in Delhi by adding to a 10,000 bed facility in the Chattarpur area. At present – the Sardar Patel Covid care center and hospital – only 10% of these beds are supplied with oxygen.
Other measures announced after the Amit Shah-Arvind Kejriwal meeting include the provision of 300 additional intensive care beds at DRDO Dhaula Kuan Hospital in Delhi, doubling the number of RT-PCR tests performed daily (currently between 18,000 and 19000) and a house – internal investigation.
In addition, some Delhi Municipal Company hospitals will be converted to dedicated COVID centers. Teams will visit all hospitals to ensure the availability of the Covid infrastructure.
This is the second major intervention – after June – of Amit Shah to manage the Covid crisis in Delhi.
On Wednesday, on the back of a steadily rising daily tally, Delhi recorded its largest single-day peak – 8,593 cases were recorded. A day later, the most Covid-related deaths in one day in over five months were recorded.
Last month, the National Center for Disease Control warned the Delhi government of about 15,000 new cases per day; This takes into account concerns about the lack of social distancing during the holidays and the respiratory issues associated with winter.
Delhi has so far reported more than 4.85 lakh Covid cases, of which more than 7,600 are virus-related deaths. The active workload, which was once less than 11,000, has now grown to almost 40,000.
