Pro-active steps taken to contain Covid-19, Delhi government tells SC

Delhi government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that since the start of pandemic in March 2020, it is taking all necessary proactive and preventive steps to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the national capital.

It said that Delhi is witnessing the third surge since beginning of November 2020 and with the support and guidance of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and expert agencies like NITI Ayog and ICMR, it has successfully responded to the pandemic of COVID-19 so far.

The Centre had on November 27, blamed the Delhi government for rising COVID-19 cases in the national capital and said that despite repeated exhortations it did not take steps to enhance testing capacity, particularly for RT-PCR, which remained static at around 20,000 tests for a long time.

The Centre had said that Delhi government was well aware that the confluence of winter, festival season and pollution were likely to witness a surge in cases and this foreknowledge ought to have led to strict enforcement and Information, Education and Communication (IEC) measures being instituted well in time but this was not done.

The affidavit filed by Delhi government was taken on record by a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R S Reddy and M R Shah, which said that it would hear on Thursday, the matter related to treatment of COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

That since the start of the pandemic (COVID-19) in Delhi in the month of March, 2020, the government of NCT of Delhi took all necessary proactive and preventive steps to contain the spread of COVID-19 through institutional arrangements and interventions (Lab and Hospital), interdepartmental co-ordination, the affidavit said.

It said that since June 1, there has been continuous effort to add more ICU beds in the health facility of the government from the total 109 ICU beds to 1749 beds in anticipation of a rise in cases.

ICU beds in hospitals under the aegis of the Central government have increased from 89 as on June 1 to 850 as on November 29, it added.

Further, the Delhi Government said in the private sector as well, the ICU beds have increased from 111 in June 2020 to 2411 on November 29, appropriate steps have been taken by the Delhi government to augment these private sector beds into the total available tally for any person who requires medical attention.

Contrary to the claims of the Central government, the Delhi government further said that in anticipation of the spike in cases due to the festival season in the city, with the support, guidance and cooperation of the government of India, intensive efforts have been made by it to increase ICU capacity in the last 15 days.

Detailing the steps, it said that an order for creation of 663 COVID ICU beds was issued on November 18 in 11 Delhi government hospitals and order for reserving 80 per cent COVID ICU beds in the remaining 42 private hospitals was issued on November 19, which adds to 249 ICU beds in the private hospitals ICU beds.

It stated that an order for reservation of 60 per cent beds for COVID was issued on November 19 for all the private hospitals (for 90 hospitals) which will add 2644 beds for the COVID beds.

The Delhi government said that as on date the total number of COVID ICU beds available in the National Capital Territory are 5010 and the cabinet has approved procurement of 1200 of bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) (a kind of ventilator) from CSIR.

It said that 300 such BiPAP of the 1200 shall be delivered next week and remaining in forthcoming weeks at a rate of 300BiPAP per week, which will enable creation of 1200 more ICU beds in Delhi government hospitals.

Regarding testing, Delhi government said that a detailed plan for testing through RT-PCR and like modes has been rolled out by GNCTD and as a result sample collection has started increasing substantially and has, in fact, saturated the ICMR declared self-declared capacity of 38,000 in Delhi".

It added that extensive Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities have been launched wherein masks and hand sanitizers were distributed to generate awareness in citizenry.

Regarding house to house survey, the affidavit said, The survey was started on November 20 by all the districts and 80, 30, 979 number of persons have been surveyed till November 29.

It said that the survey of the total population of the hotspots, vulnerable areas, crowded marketplaces, super spreader areas, containment zones and colonies have been completed and total 15,412 symptomatic and 27,740 contacts have been tested till November 29.

The survey is going to be continued for another more month by GNCT of Delhi to cover all the senior citizens, vulnerable population and persons with co-morbidities. GNCT of Delhi is committed to chasing the virus and intervening to break the chain of transmission at the first instance, it said.

The Delhi government claimed that due to its consistent efforts, the spread of COVID-19 has started showing a declining trend from last week in terms of positive cases, number of admission/discharge from hospitals, number of ICU beds occupancy and active cases in the national capital.