New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday announced the setting up of a paediatric taskforce and two genome sequencing labs as well as a plan to ramp up oxygen capacity to prepare for a possible third Covid wave that could peak at 37,000 cases a day.
The government will also create a buffer stock of important medicines, Kejriwal said at an online briefing. The two genome sequencing labs to identify variants of the virus attacking the city will come up at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital and the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), the chief minister said.
The genome sequencing lab will be made functional in the Lok Nayak hospital in two to three months' time, a government statement said.
"Genome sequencing labs are being created... so that we also know about the variant that comes to Delhi, whether it is an old one or a new variant has emerged and then we can ask experts what precautions we need to take," he said.
Kejriwal said he chaired two different meetings with experts as well as officers who were working during the Coronavirus situation. The government had formulated two committees on May 27 and carried out detailed discussions with them on Friday.
At the peak of the second wave, Delhi recorded 28,000 cases on April 20.
"On basis of this figure, we estimated how high the next peak might be. After our discussions, it was concluded that we should prepare for a peak of 37,000 cases per day.
"This, however, does not mean that if the peak goes beyond this figure, we will not be prepared. We are ready for even that, but if you are prepared on a base of 37,000 corona cases, then even if we cross the limit, we will be prepared for it," he said.
The calculations on the number of beds, ICU beds, beds for children, oxygen requirement and medicines will be made keeping in mind the figure of 37,000 cases, he said.
Delhi faced a huge shortage of oxygen, Kejriwal said, adding that after the intervention of the Supreme Court and with the support of the central government, they did get oxygen.
The government is buying 25 oxygen tankers and installing 64 small oxygen plants in the next one or two months to ensure Delhi doesn't face another oxygen crisis as it did during the second wave, he said.
"We also faced a shortage of oxygen tankers. Since Delhi is not an industrial state, we don't have oxygen tankers. Therefore, 25 oxygen tankers are being bought so that if we face a problem then we have our oxygen tankers..."
"We don't want to face such a situation should another wave arrive. Therefore, preparations have been made, a storage capacity of 420 tonnes of oxygen is being readied. We've held talks with Indraprastha Gas Limited and they have been asked to prepare a 150 metric tonne oxygen production plant, for which they have said that it will take 18 months," the chief minister added.
According to officials, the tankers will have a capacity of 350 MT and will be procured by the Health Department to ensure timely pick up of liquid medical oxygen from manufacturing sources and for inter-city distribution. The Delhi government will also ensure the generation of 150 MT of oxygen and refilling of 2,000 cylinders.
The government has created a separate paediatric task force which will decide how many oxygen beds will have to be reserved for children and how many ICU beds are to be reserved for them.
"For children, different types of equipment will be required, different masks, different oxygen masks. The pediatric task force formed yesterday will give its recommendations separately," Kejriwal said.
Besides, the government will also create a buffer stock of important medicines, keeping in mind the expiry date of every medicine, and private hospitals will also be given instructions to do so, he said.
Delhi recorded 414 fresh COVID-19 cases, the lowest in over two-and-a-half months and 60 fatalities on Saturday, while the positivity rate dipped to 0.53 per cent, according to data shared by the health department here.
According to the latest health bulletin, these new fatalities pushed the death toll from COVID-19 here to 24,557.
A total of 77,694 tests, including 55,635 RT-PCR tests and 22,059 rapid antigen tests, were conducted a day ago, according to the health bulletin on Saturday. The number of cumulative cases on Saturday stood at 14,28,863.