The Delhi government was preparing to feed ten times the number of people who have lost their livelihoods due to the ongoing lockdown to contain the COVID-19 epidemic , Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced here on Friday.
This, he said, even as a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) had been formed to deal with an increasing number of daily patients infected with the coronavirus if the need arose.
“At the moment, the Delhi government is feeding 20,000 people at 224 night shelters. We have increased the number of such facilities; food will now also be provided at 325 schools which are currently shut,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
“We will be able to provide food to 2 lakh people from today and plan to double this to 4 lakh by tomorrow... Let me assure the leaders and chief ministers of other states, do not worry about your citizens; they are Delhi’s citizens, they are our people too,” he also said.
A team of doctors tasked with creating a plan to tackle an increase in coronavirus cases has submitted its report, he said. This plan had been divided in three stages depending on the number of daily cases.
The plan details preparations in terms of ICU, testing facilities and other necessary services for 100, 500 and 1,000 daily cases, respectively.
“We are currently at stage one of this but we also have to be prepared for the future. Our SOP is ready in this respect,” he said.
“We are preparing for a stage where even 1,000 cases per day surface. We hope cases will not increase but we are ready to tackle the situation if it arises,” he said.
Published - March 27, 2020 01:09 pm IST
