As cases rise, Noida plans to add 1,500 beds in June

NOIDA: As lifting of the nation-wide lockdown has led to fears of further spread of the coronavirus, the response team of Gautam Budh Nagar is planning to increase its isolation and quarantine capacity as well as augment manpower.
Due to a rapid rise in patient count during the first four days of the month, authorities are looking to increase the bed count substantially. Sources revealed that officials are gearing up for peak infection rate by the end of June or early July.
As per the plan, an additional 1,500 beds have to be set up by the end of this month to keep positive individuals in isolation and another 3,000 for quarantining their immediate contacts and suspects.
Currently, Gautam Budh Nagar has 2,440 beds ready to keep positive patients and another 2,500 to isolate their contacts. As of June 4, these facilities were housing 187 active patients and 245 quarantined ones.
Health facilities to house positive patients have to be identified in order to increase capacity to 3,500. Increasing facilities to quarantine more than 5,000 people by end of June does not seem as challenging since officials can fall back on the hospitality industry and education institutes. A lot of hotels and hostels have already been taken over to quarantine primary contacts. “Though we have enough capacity at the moment, we need to keep augmenting resources. With movement of people taking place and commercial operations resuming, cases are expected to go up. Hence preparations are being made in advance,” said nodal officer of Covid-19 response team in the district, Narendra Bhooshan. The officer added that even though that many beds might not be required, the government machinery needs to gear up for the worst- case scenario.
The facilities being readied to keep confirmed patients, would be distinguished as L1, L2 and L3 as per their preparedness to deal with asymptomatic, symptomatic and patients with comorbidities.
A health officer added that people with comorbidities or pre-existing health conditions need not worry at all since more than 600 beds to provide critical care have been identified at Sharda University in Greater Noida and a portion of the hospital has been already taken over for the time being.