Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel meets officials to discuss Covid-19 situation in Vadodara

Deputy Chief Minister and state health minister Nitin Patel, who reached Vadodara Saturday, held a meeting with officials and elected leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Circuit House to discuss the Covid-19 situation in the city.

On Saturday, Vadodara recorded 384 Covid-19 cases taking the total case count to 29,541, a health bulletin issued by the administrations said. The city also recorded one death, taking the toll to 253.

Vadodara has recorded a hospitalisation of nearly 6,000 patients on Saturday as against a capacity of 8,504 beds. Of the 1,440 ICU beds, 1,175 are occupied while 2,372 oxygen-supply beds are occupied — the hospitalisations include patients from other districts, suspected cases awaiting their RT-PCR tests or reports and also those awaiting a discharge, officials said.

Officials said that Patel assured that the state government would extend all help possible to set up the logistics to deal with the rising number of cases and also stressed on improving the response to the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Vadodara.

Patel held a meeting, which lasted over two hours, with the officials of the administration at the circuit house in Vadodara. Patel is said to have discussed the issue of the rising cases as well as the allegations that the Vadodara Municipal Corporation has been covering up the statistics despite having high hospitalisation.

The meeting was attended by Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi elected MLAs of Vadodara Yogesh Patel, Manisha Vakil and Seema Mohile, MP Ranjan Bhatt and Vadodara Mayor Keyur Rokadia – both of whom had tested positive for Covid-19 recently.
The city police detained Congress leaders from their residence, who were on their way to the circuit house to hand over a memorandum to Patel regarding the management of Covid-19 in the city.

VMC Congress corporator Ami Ravat and party leader Narendra Ravat were among those detained.

Ami Ravat had raised the issue of under-reporting of Covid-19 cases in a General Board discussion of the VMC, urging newly appointed Mayor Keyur Rokadia to instruct the civic health department to give out the real
picture of the pandemic to the residents.