NEW DELHI: With over 6,000 fresh COVID cases for the second consecutive day in the city, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Delhi is going through the third wave of the pandemic.
"In the past few days, cases of coronavirus have increased. Considering the trend, I would call it a third wave. Because by September end and October beginning, cases had started to drop...it went below 3,000. We are continuously keeping an eye over the condition of the pandemic in the city," Kejriwal said.
"All I would say is that there's nothing to panic. We are constantly doing surveillance. We are going to challenge the high court order on our rule to reserve up to 80 per cent ICU beds (for COVID patients) in private hospitals," he added.
The Delhi Health Secretary also held a meeting with the medical directors and medical superintendents of city's government COVID hospitals to discuss the paln for capacity escalation. Health Minister Satyendar Jain also said that the COVID spike can be called as the third wave in the city. Delhi witnessed the first peak in June and then in September.
The Dr VK Paul Committee had suggested that owing to festive season along with winter and pollution, cases in Delhi are likely to reach up to 10,000 reports daily. Experts fear that going by the trend, the pandemic may slip out of the hands of the government.
"The government should learn to balance between economy and illness. To improve the economy, it opened up the market and gave too many relaxations. All their good work is now undone. People are getting more infected and govt needs to implement such policies so that there is minimum opportunity of physical interaction amongst people," said Dr Lalit Kant of ICMR.