Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has called out for a unified front if Delhi and India have to beat the threat of coronavirus, which he termed as one of the biggest threats faced by mankind ever. He asked all political parties and other stakeholders including nurses, doctors, policemen, media personnel to work as one in their endeavour to defeat COVID-19.
“This is not a time to fight amongst each other. This is the time to be one in our fight against coronavirus. This is probably one of the biggest challenges that mankind has faced ever. We must be together in this fight,” Kejriwal said.
Also referring to the overturning of the Delhi government’s decision of reserving a large chunk of Delhi’s hospitals for the residents of Delhi by the LG and the Central government as an extension, Kejriwal said, “The decision has been taken by the LG to overturn our order about reservation in Delhi hospitals in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his decision will be upheld in word and spirit.
“We have 31,000 cases in Delhi today and about 900 deaths. 12,000 have recovered while 18,000 are still fighting coronavirus. We have reported about 900 deaths so far. As many as 15,000 people in the state are in home isolation. A State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) meeting was called yesterday which i couldn’t attend because of health reasons. In that meeting it was projected that Delhi’s cases are likely to rise to 44,000 by June 15, 1 lakh on June 30, 2 lakh on July 15 and 5 lakh on July 30, this is a massive challenge we are up against,” Kejriwal said.
On the severity of the challenge, Kejriwal gave a detailed explanation of the number of beds the national capital would be requiring in the coming days. “In light of this Delhi would be needing 6,600 beds by June 15, 15,000 beds by June 30, 33,000 beds by July 15 and 80,000 beds by end of July. If we are to cater for people coming into Delhi from other states, we must double these numbers,” Kejriwal said.