NEW DELHI: Delhi reported the first case of Covid-19 on March 2 after an east Delhi businessman who had returned from Italy a week earlier tested positive. Within days, more people who had travelled to countries struggling with the outbreak proved positive for Covid too, leading to a health and social crisis.
The scare wasn’t unfounded. Little was known of the novel coronavirus, so no treatment was available for the disease. To reduce the risk of infection, healthcare workers had to use personal protective equipment (PPE) when attending to Covid patients, a precaution hitherto limited to rare cases of highly infectious diseases.
Covid took Delhi by storm. After the detection of the first case on March 2, within a month, the number had risen to 293. A nationwide lockdown was implemented from March 25 to prevent the spread of infection. In Delhi, all schools, colleges and restaurants had been ordered to shut down on March 22 itself. Despite this, the cases continued to increase and by May 2, the viral infection had claimed 64 lives in the capital and left 4,122 others infected.
The spread was facilitated by a few super-spreader events, one being a religious gathering in Nizamuddin where hundreds tested positive for the infection. A cancer hospital run by Delhi government in Shahdara had to be shut down when several healthcare workers and their contacts became infected.
“Delhi’s response to Covid was initially good, but the administration failed to ramp up the infrastructure and by June, the cases were at a crisis level,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS. “However, the state then managed the situation well in coordination with the central government.” The pandemic first hit a peak in May, and then again in September and November.
In June, more than 50% of beds reserved for Covid patients in the government-run hospitals went vacant even as people struggled to find a bed in private hospitals. Even public figures, including some ministers of the central and the state governments who tested positive for Covid, chose to seek treatment in private hospitals.
The Supreme Court questioned Delhi government’s claims about its preparedness to fight the pandemic, pointing out how there were a low number of daily tests, improper treatment of Covid patients, undignified handling of dead patients’ bodies and denial of salaries to doctors.
It was then that Delhi took the lead in making home isolation possible for asymptomatic Covid-positive people and those with mild symptoms, ensuring that they were cared for in their homes or through tele-consultations. Despite this, the latest data shows that 10,911 people lost their lives to the infection in the city.
The first plasma bank in the country for managing Covid also began in Delhi in July. With no treatment available for the coronavirus infection, doctors wanted to use plasma extracted from the recovered patient as a possible therapy. “A recent study published in New England Journal of Medicine shows that the therapy indeed benefits Covid-19 patients,” said Dr S K Sarin, director, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, which runs that plasma bank. He disclosed that more than 5,000 people received plasma from the bank.
Today, Delhi’s Covid tally stands at 6.39 lakh, sixth highest in India after Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The situation now appears to be under control, but experts say it is important to adhere to preventive measures and speed up the vaccination programme.