NEW DELHI: Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s alarming prediction of the COVID-19 scenario in the national capital has, thankfully, turned out to be completely wrong. On June 9, Sisodia had said the coronavirus-positive cases in the capital could reach 5.5 lakh by July-end and that the city would need 80,000 beds.
The projection was apparently based on the infection doubling rate in Delhi at that time. However, the hospitals are breathing easy as the cases have been on a decline for past several days and less than 3,000 COVID-19 patients are currently admitted in hospital. As per the Delhi government’s corona app, 13,626 general beds are currently available of which only 2,998 remains occupied.
Only 371 positive patients are currently admitted in Delhi government’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, which has the largest capacity with 2,000 beds. The 1,500-beds Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, which is also under the state government, has 78 patients admitted at present. Central government hospitals like AIIMS-Jhajjar and Delhi campuses have around patients 100 admitted each, while their combined bed capacity is 1,515.
Among private hospitals, Max Hospital in Saket has currently the highest number of patients, with 155 out of 200 occupied. However, 404 ventilation beds out of 1,218 remain occupied while the rest 814 are vacant.
At AIIMS-Delhi, 47 ventilator beds out of 50 are occupied, with only three being available. At Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, which has a total capacity of 191 beds with ventilators, only 11 patients are admitted. According to medical experts, the corona peak in Delhi had passed by June-end and cases started dipping from July first week.
Only 613 fresh cases were reported on July 27 while it was around 2,500 on an average in the first week of the month. While Sisodia’s dire prediction has come untrue, it had, at that time, forced the Delhi government to ramp up its preparations and had even prompted the Centre to step in. And that is perhaps the reason that the COVID graph is declining in the capital. Currently, there are only 7.89% active cases while the recovery rate is 89.18%.