In a sharp attack on China, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said India is fighting two wars with the neighbouring nation–first, with the coronavirus sent by them, and second, at the border.
According to Kejriwal, while on the one hand, “our doctors and nurses are fighting a war against corona, our soldiers, on the other hand, are fighting at the border”. Kejriwal added that there is no politics on this.
Kejriwal said, “Today the whole country stands with our doctors on one side and our soldiers on the other side and we have to fight these two wars together. In these two cases, there should be no politics, no party betting. Our 20 young men did not retreat, the country will not retreat unless we win; we will not win until the country retreats.”
This is the first time after the Delhi Assembly elections that Kejriwal has spoken on any issue other than Delhi. Meanwhile, in another significant development Kejriwal also informed about the situation of coronavirus in Delhi. Kejriwal said that patients who have difficulty in breathing are suffering in home isolation as such patients need oxygen immediately; hence, the Delhi government will provide such patients with a pulse oximeter.
“People for mild symptoms or ones with fever, cough or no symptoms are being treated at home. Every day, our team calls them and asks about their condition and gives advice as well. One of the most common problems in corona is that the patient has difficulty in breathing and the patient needs oxygen immediately. If the patient gets oxygen immediately, then the patient can be saved. Hence, the Delhi government will now give a pulse oximeter to every home isolation case. When you recover, return it to the government. This will allow you to keep checking your oxygen and be informed if there is a lack of oxygen and our team will arrive immediately with an oxygen concentrator. The patient will then be shifted to hospital if required. We will be having oxygen concentrators at every district level,” the Chief Minister said.
The number of corona cases in Delhi has increased to 59,746. The number of active patients is about 25,000 and 33,000 people have recovered and gone home. The hospitals have 6,000 patients and there are 12,000 people in home isolation. At the same time, 2,175 people have died from this disease. According to Kejriwal, exactly one week earlier, there were 24,000 active cases in Delhi. Only 1,000 active cases have increased in a week. Kejriwal is assuming that almost as many people are getting sick as they are recovering.
Kejriwal said, “On 12 June, there were 5,300 beds in all the hospitals in Delhi. Today, 6,200 beds are filled, that is, 900 beds were filled within 10 days. A total of 23,000 new patients were admitted so as many people are being admitted in the hospitals as are getting recovered. Secondly, most of the cases are mild. There is no need for beds on a large scale at the moment. To date, about 7,000 beds are vacant. In the meantime, we are getting a lot of support from the Central government. The Delhi government and the Central government are working together to control corona. This is not the time to do politics. If we fight among ourselves, corona will win.”
According to Kejriwal, testing in Delhi has been increased more than three times its previous number; “this will highly benefit our fight against corona”, he said. There were 18,105 tests done in the last 24 hours, which is the highest ever. So far, a total of 3,70,014 tests have been done in Delhi.
“We have increased the testing more than three times in the last few days. In the meantime, some people were having difficulty in getting their tests done, but now I don’t think it will be a problem anymore. Some laboratories were trying to make a mess, but we took action against them. Some of the cases tested positive though they were actually negative. Now there is no such complaint. Rapid antigen test has been started in Delhi with the help of the Central government. It gives results within 15 to 30 minutes,” Kejriwal added.
The Delhi government is assuming that even if the number of patients increases in the coming days, there will be no problem with the availability of beds in Delhi and hence, the fight against corona is improving.