Cavalry arrives in Delhi as Sisodia dismisses chances of lockdown
New Delhi: As traders in the city were thrown into a panic after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's remarks on shutting down crowded markets, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday assured businesspeople here that there was no plan for another lockdown. He conceded that restrictions may be placed in market areas to prevent the infection from spreading.
Meanwhile, the Centre has brought in the cavalry to handle Delhi's COVID-19 situation as it continues to reel under the third wave of the pandemic. The Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday said 45 doctors and 160 paramedics from paramilitary forces have already been flown in for deployment at DRDO's facility in Dhaula Kuan and the COVID-19 care centre in South Delhi's Chhatarpur. More doctors and paramedics will reach Delhi in the next few days.
The Railways is making available coaches with 800 beds at Shakur Basti Railway Station while the DRDO facility is adding 250 ICU beds to its existing 250 in addition to creating 35 BiPAP beds in its facility. In fact, the Delhi government has also planned to add over 600 beds in its hospitals in the coming days.
However, trying to calm residents over possibilities of further lockdown and rising cases, Sisodia said while interacting with reporters at the Delhi Secretariat: "Lockdown was not a solution to the pandemic. It could be tackled through proper medical arrangements which the government was doing effectively."
He also added: "We have no intention of a lockdown. Let me clarify, we have made a general proposal to the Centre with regard to certain regulations like shutdown for some days in the markets where COVID-19-appropriate behaviour and social distancing violations pose a threat of rapid infection."
And with L-G Anil Baijal accepting the Delhi government's proposal to limit guests at weddings to 50 once again from 200, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority issued fresh directions capping the number of guests allowed at indoor events — leaving many disturbed for their wedding plans this season.
As for ramping up testing figures, the new strategy will be to focus on increasing daily RT-PCR capacity to 60,000 tests and conduct large-scale surveillance to trace contacts of positive cases. The ICMR and its labs and resources have been roped in for this. Five RT-PCR laboratories including at AIIMS, Delhi have already started functioning round-the-clock.
Testing capacity has already been enhanced by 10,000 tests per day on November 17, an MHA spokesperson said. The planning for the house-to-house survey is in the advanced stage and it is expected to be completed by November 25.
According to the spokesperson, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has dispatched 250 ventilators from Bengaluru and these are expected to reach Delhi by the end of the week. As many as 25 BIPAP machines for the Delhi government will also be provided by the health ministry, the spokesperson said.
These interventions in collaboration with the Centre come after Union Home minister Amit Shah chaired a COVID-19 review meeting with Kejriwal and other senior officials on Sunday. The meeting had resulted in an elaborate re-strategisation exercise to deal with the third wave of the disease.
