Union Home Minister Amit Shah will convene a meeting of senior officials to review the spike in Covid-19 cases in the national capital on Sunday, officials said. Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, state health minister Satyendra Jain and senior officers of the central government are expected to attend the meeting.
On November 2, a meeting convened by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla had attributed the third surge in coronavirus cases in Delhi to festivals and a greater movement of people, accompanied by laxity in adhering to the basic principles of Covid-appropriate behaviour. However, Kejriwal last week blamed rising pollution for the spike in the cases.
During the meeting chaired by Bhalla, officials had resolved that efforts would be made for testing, contact-tracing and treatment, especially in the city’s critical zones. Officials also emphasised that locals’ movement by metro should be carefully regulated, in accordance with the standard operating procedures (SOPs).
At Sunday's meeting, a strategy is expected to be devised to contain the spread of the virus in Delhi, especially in view of the festive season and the decreasing temperatures, accompanied by rising pollution.
The national capital recorded 7,340 fresh Covid-19 cases and 96 new fatalities due to the virus on Saturday. The fresh cases were detected through 49,645 tests, including 19,635 RT-PCR and 30,010 rapid-antigen tests, conducted on Friday. Covid-19 positivity rate in the city was 14.78 per cent, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.
The highest single-day spike of 8,593 cases and 85 fatalities were recorded on Wednesday. On November 12, the number of deaths recorded was 104, the highest in over five months. The total number of cases has now climbed to 4,82,170 in Delhi, while the city's death toll due to the disease stands at 7,519.
The tally of active cases rose to 44,456 in the national capital on Saturday. The recovery rate stood at over 89 per cent. The number of containment zones in Delhi was 4,288 as on Saturday.
The sudden spike in coronavirus cases comes amid the festive season and rising pollution levels. While Durga Puja celebrations ended on October 25, Diwali was celebrated on Saturday and Chhath puja will be celebrated later this week.
The National Centre for Disease Control, in a report drafted recently, had warned that authorities in Delhi needed to be prepared for 15,000 Covid-19 cases per day, taking into account winter-related respiratory problems, a large influx of patients from outside and festive gatherings.
In June, when the number of Covid-19 cases was on the rise in Delhi, Shah had swung into action after criticism in different quarters of the Delhi government's handling of the crisis. At that time, there were complaints of non-availability of beds in hospitals and difficulty in getting tests done in laboratories. A committee set up by Shah had fixed the rates for testing, increased beds in private hospitals, ICUs and isolation wards.
At a meeting on June 18, the home minister had said a common strategy should be framed for Delhi and the National Capital region (NCR) to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and added that suburbs like Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad cannot be separated from the national capital in this battle.
