The time is not right to open up shopping malls, restaurants and religious places in the Capital as COVID-19 has reached the community transmission stage with 25% positive cases, the Congress said on Sunday.
Questions preparedness
Addressing an online press conference, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken questioned Delhi’s preparedness to handle a spike in cases and blamed both the Arvind Kejriwal government as well the Centre for mishandling the health crisis.
Mr. Maken cited an expert committee report to argue that by July, the city could see 1.9 lakh COVID-19 cases and may require as many as 10,500 ventilators.
The Congress leader also said parents should not send their children from July and vehemently opposed Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s comment that schools could open in July.
“It is premature for the Delhi government to open restaurants, malls from June 8 till the health infrastructure improved,” Mr. Maken said.
“The way they are opening up gradually, we are going to definitely see a time when a large number of people will be tested COVID-19 positive and we will have nowhere to go — no hospitals and no quarantine centres to go to,” he added.
The former Delhi Congress chief said it was ‘shameful’ that the government health infrastructure in Delhi was so bad. “This is because Delhi hospitals are in bad shape,” he said, and asked the Kejriwal government to explain why it was refusing admission to COVID-19 patients when 72% of its beds were empty according to its own website.
Of the 38 government hospitals in Delhi, 33 were not treating COVID-19 patients and were refusing them admission, the Congress leader alleged
“What kind of health infrastructure Delhi government has created for coronavirus in the last three months? Unless they are prepared to improve the infrastructure, I don’t think they have any right to open markets, malls and other places and even schools, as they are trying to do now,”Mr. Maken said.
The Congress also held the Centre “equally responsible” for the apathy.
He said the Central institutions have around 13,200 hospital beds in Delhi and Municipal Corporations have 3,500 such beds. “Why are only 1,502 out of these 16,700 beds reserved for COVID patients?” he asked.
The Delhi Congress leader also slammed the Delhi government for taking penal action against eight testing laboratories for ‘overtesting’ and accused the Aam Aadmi Party government of trying to keep the COVID-19 numbers artificially low.
