Kejriwal said his Cabinet held a meeting on Friday and a decision to set up 450 additional beds at Burari Hospital was taken.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said his government will set up ICU beds on a large scale at three state-run hospitals in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases in the national capital. Addressing an online media briefing, he said Delhi has reported around 74,000 cases so far; of them, 45,000 patients have recovered. The rise in number of cases is a matter of concern but there is no need to panic as the COVID-19 situation is “still under control”, Kejriwal asserted.

“We have increased our capacity of testing by three times and hence, cases are rising in the city… If we conduct 1-2 lakh tests daily in the coming days, it is natural to observe a spike in the number of coronavirus cases,” he said. In LNJP Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital and GTB Hospital, the government is going to set up more ICU beds on a large scale, he said, adding the administration has already set up 3,500 beds for COVID-19 patients in hotels in the last 10 days.

The chief minister also said that COVID-19 patients under home isolation have been given pulse oximeters and that this will act as a “Suraksha Kawach” against the disease. He said the government has got permission to conduct plasma therapy on 200 patients and LNJP and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital will conduct the trials.
Private hospitals have also sought permission to conduct plasma therapy, he said. He also played an audio clip of his conversation with a patient in home isolation.

In the clip, the patient told the chief minister he was fine and had no symptoms. The patient said the Delhi government medical team has been calling him everyday to guide him through the home-isolation process. Kejriwal said his Cabinet held a meeting on Friday and a decision to set up 450 additional beds at Burari Hospital was taken, adding that funds were sanctioned for it.

He said Delhi has largely reported mild cases over the past week and that’s why out of the total 13,500 beds in hospitals, only 6,000 have occupied. Even though there is no sudden requirement of beds in hospitals, the Delhi government is working round-the-clock to ensure more beds are added in the foreseeable future, he said.