Will give pulse oximeters for patients in home isolation: CM

New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said the Delhi government is going to provide pulse oximeters to COVID-19 patients recovering under home isolation, adding that every district will have oxygen concentrators so that medical monitoring and subsequent healthcare can be provided at the earliest. He said Delhi will have a helpline and the team will come to the homes of the recovering patients to provide oxygen.

The Capital has 25,000 active COVID-19 cases, around 12,000 of whom are under home isolation. Kejriwal added that the number of active cases in the Capital had grown by just 1,000 in the last week, asserting that the city had managed to triple its daily testing numbers.

The decision to start providing medical equipment for health monitoring of home isolation patients comes after a high-level review meeting between the Chief Minister, Union Home minister Amit Shah and other officials who agreed to keep a closer eye on such patients. The special committee headed by Dr VK Paul had recommended that the most efficient way to avoid fatalities was to make sure high-risk patients are identified as soon as possible so that adequate medical attention can be given to them in time.

Kejriwal said: "There are around 25,000 active cases in Delhi. Around 33,000 people have recovered and gone back to their homes while there are 6,000 people in the hospitals and 12,000 Corona patients are recovering under home isolation. A week ago, there were 24,000 active cases in Delhi, which means that in one week, there has been a surge of only 1,000 cases and the number of recovering people is the same as the number of people who are getting infected. This gives us hope that things are slowly stabilising."

He added: "Earlier, people were having a tough time getting tested, but now I believe people must be getting tested without many complications. Earlier, around 5000 tests were conducted per day, which has now increased to 18,000 tests per day."

The Chief Minister maintained that on June 12, there were 5,300 beds occupied in all the hospitals in Delhi, and today, 6,200 beds are occupied, which means that only 900 more beds have been occupied in the last 10 days, whereas the number of Corona cases went up by 23,000 new cases.

"This means that the number of new patients admitted in the hospitals for Corona is the same as the number of people who are recovering and going back to their homes. Out of all the Corona cases, we have very few serious cases and mild or asymptomatic cases are more, who are recovering at their homes and who do not require admission in the hospitals," he added.

Delhi on Monday reported 2,909 new COVID-19 cases taking the total tally to 62,655. While the Capital reported more recoveries than new cases, with 3,589 patients reported to have recovered, the daily testing saw a marginal dip with a total of 14,682 tests being conducted in the last 24 hours. The total number of recoveries in the city has reached 36,602 and with 53 deaths added to the toll, Delhi has now seen 2,233 COVID-19 fatalities.