CM Kejriwal also said that when the cases were soaring in the city his government also mulled a second phase of lockdown to contain the spread of the virus but decided against it eventually.

Coronavirus: Shortage of beds led to Delhi’s rise in death toll, CM Kejriwal admits, as per a report in IE. Conceding that less number of beds was responsible for the spike in the casualty figure, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that the pace at which the number of Coronavirus multiplied in the national capital after the lockdown was not expected by the government, IE reported. People started struggling for beds during the first week of June and since the people could not get beds there were more people who died during the period, CM Kejriwal said. He also said that the testing capacity at that point was also not high.

Analysing the spread of the virus in the city from the very beginning CM Kejriwal said that initially the information was low about the virus and some 35000 people from different countries came back to the national capital before the lockdown. During lockdown the transmission had stopped to a large extent, we were expecting a surge in the numbers post the lockdown but the increase was more than the government had expected, he added.

CM Kejriwal also said that when the cases were soaring in the city his government also mulled a second phase of lockdown to contain the spread of the virus but decided against it eventually. The government had intense discussion with various stakeholders and experts about bringing another phase of lockdown but eventually we decided that we would fight the virus without imposing the lockdown, Kejriwal said.

Laying the roadmap of his government for the coming days, the Chief Minister said that increasing the number of beds, aggressive testing, distribution of pulse oximeters to home-quarantined patients, plasma therapy, surveys and screening were some of the areas the government is going to focus in the coming days.Reserving beds in private hospitals and converting hotels into Covid facilities are part of the government’s strategy to increase the number of beds in the city, CM Kejriwal said.

He also said that the government has a surplus of 3500 beds in hotels and around 10000 beds capacity at recently built Sardar Patel Covid care centre in Chattarpur area.

He also highlighted the fact that the government has increased the number of daily tests in the capital. In the first week of June we sued to test 5000 samples a day but now we have increased it to 20000 a day, said Kejriwal. Expecting a clear picture about the spread of the virus in the city by doing a serological survey, CM Kejriwal said that 20000 people will be surveyed as part of the serological survey and it will give a clear idea about the rate of transmission of virus in Delhi.