Delhi recorded 3,788 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and overtook Mumbai to become the city with the highest number of total cases. Delhi’s case tally has risen to 70,390, while its death toll climbed to 2,365, with 64 more fatalities.
Mumbai added 1,118 new COVID-19 cases, pushing its total to 69,528.
The 3,788 new cases in Delhi is the second-highest single-day spike seen in the city so far. This is the fifth time in six days that the Capital has reported 3,000 or more cases. Tuesday had witnessed the highest number of new cases in a single day at 3,947. Of the total cases in the city, 41,437 people have recovered while there are 26,588 active cases.
As cases in the city surged, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday visited Shehnai Banquet Hall, which has been converted into a 100-bed COVID Care Centre.
Kejriwal thanks NGO
“I want to thank the NGO ‘Doctors for You’ for taking up the responsibility of operating this facility. Many NGOs like these are coming forward to support the government at the time of the pandemic. This is the first banquet hall starting to operate as a facility for the treatment of COVID-19 patients,” he said.
“Out of 13,500 beds, around 6,200 beds have been occupied in both private and government hospitals in Delhi. This number has been stagnant since yesterday [Tuesday], which means that the usage of beds has not increased, even though we have observed 4,000 new cases in the last 24 hours,” Mr. Kejriwal said, and added that this also shows that the virus is not very severe in Delhi.
The Delhi government also advised all heads of hospitals and medical institutions under the Delhi government to extend the tenure of senior and junior resident doctors currently working there by six months to meet the shortage of resident doctors during the outbreak.
In a related development, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Vice Chairperson Raghav Chadha on Wednesday visited a 10,000-bed under construction COVID Care Centre at Radha Soami Satsang Beas to inspect water supply works undertaken by the DJB.
“DJB has carried out engineering works and installed hydrants to connect the underground reservoir to which clean Ganga water will be provided to all the patients and healthcare staff,” Mr. Chadha said.
