New Delhi: Amid rising Coronavirus cases, lockdown in Delhi may be extended by another week, a report said on Sunday. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal may make an announcement on the decision tomorrow i.e. Sunday, reported NDTV. It must be noted that Delhi is under lockdown till 5 AM Monday. Delhi logged over 27,000 new Covid cases and 375 deaths in the last 24 hours.
On Sunday, Kejriwal had extended the lockdown in the national capital till May 3 amid the surge in the coronavirus cases. “Çovid-19 has wreaked havoc in Delhi. A lot of deliberation has been done on extending the lockdown for another week. The lockdown has been imposed in Delhi till May 3, 5 am,” Kejriwal had said.
“During the lockdown we saw that the infection rate has gone up to nearly 36 per cent… till date, we have not seen such an infection rate in Delhi. It has come down in the last two days… on Sunday, it is nearly 29 per cent,” he had added.
Prior to that, the Delhi government had imposed a six-day lockdown.
Kejriwal resorted to lockdown amid an alarming surge in COVID-19 cases for the past three weeks. The hospitals are crumbling under the weight of the disease with many of them reporting oxygen shortage and medicines in the past few weeks.
Earlier in the day, 8 COVID-19 patients, including the HOD of the gastroenterology department, at Delhi’s Batra Hospital died due to oxygen shortage. “We are trying to revive five other critical patients,” said Dr SCL Gupta.
Among the 8 dead patients, six were admitted to the hospital’s ICU (intensive care unit) and two were in the wards. The doctor who died was identified as Dr RK Himathani, the head of the Gastroenterology unit.
Yesterday, the traders’ body, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), had appealed to the Delhi government to extend Delhi lockdown till 15 May.