NEW DELHI : Claiming that the Delhi government was prepared to fight the spike in Covid-19 cases, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said at the press conference after the COVID preparedness meeting on Friday said, “We request patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) and Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) to mask up, though there has been no mandate from the Centre to this regard so far”. Elaborating at the preperations by the government he said, “7,986 beds have been set aside for Covid, including oxygen, ICU and ventilator beds. 100% cases of Covid-19 are sent for genome sequencing, he added.
He attributed the recent surge to XBB variant of the coronavirus and its sub-variants. Speaking in terms of recent deaths he said, ” three deaths in Delhi were not Covid-related. The patients had other ailments and coronavirus was “incidental”.
The press conference comes a day after the state health minister chaired an emergency meeting as the cases in the national capital doubled overnight.
India witnessed a single-day rise of 3,095 fresh Covid-19 cases with the active caseload increasing to 15,208, according to Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in Friday. The death toll rose to 5,30,867 with five people succumbing to the infection — one each reported by Goa and Gujarat and three reconciled by Kerala — in a span of 24 hours.
The daily positivity was recorded at 2.61 per cent while the weekly positivity was pegged at 1.91 per cent.
Other state governments are also ramping up testing for Covid-19 and encouraging the increased use of masks and social distancing as the recent uptick in virus tally continues, with daily case count breaching record of nearly six months