Delhi News Live Updates:
Healthcare worker takes a swab sample outside Sarojini Nagar metro station in New Delhi on Saturday. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
For the time being, elderly patients in some districts are being asked to be shifted to government facilities, even if they wish to isolate at home. The Indian Express spoke to several district officials, and most said they were following the Union health ministry’s guidelines issued in April 2021, adding that the current surge in Omicron has created some amount of ambiguity.
Meanwhile, with the rise in the number of COVID cases in the city, AIIMS has once again shifted its trauma department to the main hospital and made that stand-alone center across the road a dedicated COVID hospital.
The move was criticized by doctors at the hospital as it cuts off the availability of beds, ICUs and operation theaters for trauma patients requiring immediate intervention. It also splinters departments such as general, neuro and orthopedic surgery in the main hospital, compromising the care of polytrauma patients – those with two or more severe injuries – requiring extensive treatment by all teams.
delhi government wary of announcing complete lockdown
The Delhi government has been wary of announcing a complete lockdown, fearing a repeat of the migrant labor exodus seen in March-April 2020 and again in April 2021.
The first lockdown was announced in Delhi on March 23, 2020, two days before the national lockdown was announced. At that time, there were 30 Covid cases in the city, and 23 were hospitalised.
The second lockdown was announced by the Delhi government on April 19 in the midst of the second Covid wave, the day 23,686 cases were reported in a single day with a positivity rate of over 26 per cent. At that time more than 15,000 beds were occupied. The second wave was particularly deadly, and health facilities were soon overwhelmed, leaving many patients requiring hospitalization.
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