Doctors at Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital in East Delhi. (Express Photo: Prem Nath Pandey)
The Delhi government said on Sunday that 91 Covid-19 patients are in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and 27 are on ventilator support across the 10 hospitals in the city where they have been admitted. With 4,781 “active” cases in Delhi till Sunday, this works out to about 1.9% in ICUs and 0.56% on ventilator support.
On May 1, when there were 2,510 active cases, 49 were in ICUs (about 1.95%) and 5 on ventilator support (about 0.19%).
The number of people requiring ventilator support saw a sharp spike in the last 24 hours, from 18 on Saturday to 27 on Sunday.
While the number of Covid-19 patients admitted in ICUs touched 92 on May 5, it dipped to 84 (May 6) and 87 (May 7) before settling at 91 for the last three days.
The city’s tally, however, is still lower than the national average. On Friday, Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that of the active cases across the country, 4.7% were in ICUs and 1.1% needed ventilators.
“The percentage of people requiring ICU facilities has remained more or less the same over the past few weeks. The number of those needing ventilator support has gone up, though. In some cases, we have seen that people have been unwell for some time but because their test reports were delayed, they did not know they were suffering from Covid-19. Some reached the hospital late,” said a Delhi government official.
Delhi government officials said that as the number of positive cases rises, so does the proportion of those requiring specialised care. The administration said it is ready to deal with an increased patient load.
While government hospitals in Delhi have 389 ICU beds and around 300 ventilators, private hospitals have a total of 3,000 ICU beds and around 250 ventilators. “We have around 550 ventilators available and we also have a plan to take over more hospitals as and when it is needed. Delhi has a plan even if it has 30,000 active patients at the same time,” an official in the CMO said.
With 381 new cases being reported on Sunday, the city’s total case count is now 6,923. Of these, 2,069 have recovered, 1,476 are admitted in hospitals and 1,428 are under home isolation. The remaining, who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, are in designated Covid centres.
Of the 73 deaths in the city — five reported on Sunday — 49% were aged over 60 years; 85% had other co-morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension and respiratory disorders.