Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said Delhi was in a “much better position” than had been estimated amid rising cases of COVID-19 in June, but this should not be a reason for complacency.
He said both active cases and deaths had reduced in the city because of the “Delhi Model”, which had also been praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Around June 1, when the number of coronavirus cases was rising, we had presented the projected number of cases on June 30, July 15, and July 31. This projection was done as per the Central government’s formula of identifying the number of cases in the future according to the trend at that time,” he said.
According to the Centre’s formula, he said, there was a prediction of 2.25 lakh and total cases and 1.34 lakh active cases by July 15. Around 34,000 beds would have been needed in Delhi for the COVID-19 patients, according to the estimates in the first week of June.
“But due to the collective efforts of the Delhi government, the Central government and the two crore people of Delhi, the actual number of cases is half of what we had projected till July 15. There are 1,15,000 coronavirus cases in Delhi, out of which only 18,600 are active cases,” said the Chief Minister.
‘Don’t be complacent’
“We had arranged for 15,500 beds for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, out of which only 4,000 beds are occupied and the rest remain vacant. The situation is under control, but as I said, we should not be complacent. The number of cases can surge any moment,” he cautioned.
Mr. Kejriwal thanked the people, the doctors, nurses and the “corona warriors” who had risked their lives and worked day and night to control the situation. The Delhi government had worked on three principles: teamwork, identifying and addressing systemic issues and not losing hope.
“First, we learnt that the novel coronavirus is such a huge pandemic that no one can fight it alone. We would have failed in our efforts to contain the virus if we had thought that we could fight it alone. We appealed to the Central government. I also want to thank all the parties, the BJP and the Congress, for supporting us at such a time,” he said.
“Our second principle was that instead of being hostile or aggressive towards any agency, be it the people on the social media or the media pointing out lapses, we should correct our mistakes. Third, we did not lose hope,” he said.
Mr. Kejriwal said everybody was appreciating the “Delhi Model” and Mr. Modi had said it should be implemented in other locations. The foundation of the Delhi model, he said, was collectivity, teamwork and togetherness.
For instance, he said, to increase testing in Delhi, the Centre was asked for help and that is how rapid antigen testing was started in the city. The second important factor behind the Delhi model was home isolation.
“We introduced home isolation where people could easily recover in the comfort of their homes. Around 80%-90% people are recovering under home isolation. Because of the home isolation model, testing in Delhi has increased. Earlier, people were scared to get tested because they thought they would be put into quarantine centres if they tested positive,” he said.
“In many States, this is the actual reason why people are not getting tested. Nobody wants to go for the test until they have serious symptoms, and because of no testing they also infect other people in their vicinity,” said the Chief Minister.
‘Response time reduced’
According to Mr. Kejriwal, the AAP government was trying to reduce the number of deaths due to COVID-19. He said the response time of ambulances had reduced to half an hour, arrangements had been made to take patients to holding areas in hospitals soon after arrival and more beds had been arranged in addition to the creation of plasma bank.
