New Delhi: Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has conducted a meeting on Monday amid the surge of coronavirus in Delhi. There will be a ban on the dine-in facility in restaurants but the takeaway facilities will continue. The officials said that the seating capacity in the Metros and buses will also be decreased from the current capacity to 50 percent while the bars in the city will be closed.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal said that it is decided in the meeting to allow the operation of only one weekly market per day per zone. Delhi Health Department was advised to make adequate arrangements for additional manpower in hospitals and to scale up the vaccination efforts including for those in the age group of 15-18 years.
Meanwhile, Delhi reports 19,166 fresh COVID cases, 14,076 recoveries, and 17 deaths in the last 24 hours. There are 65,806 active cases while the positivity rate is 25%. The death toll has risen to 25,177.
It was also said that on January 10, Delhi has an infrastructure of 900 metric tonnes of oxygen ready.
The meeting was chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, and Health Minister Satyendar Jain which lasted for about two and a half hours. It was discussed in the meeting to strictly enforce existing restrictions in Delhi to also be imposed in the National Capital Territory Region to check rising cases of the coronavirus and its Omicron variant.
Earlier, on Sunday, Kejriwal has said that the rapid speed at which the coronavirus is spreading in Delhi is a matter of "deep concern", yet added there is no plan to impose lockdown if people wear masks. Meanwhile, the Delhi Government has issued a new guideline for private hospitals and nursing homes due to the increasing number of corona-infected patients in the ICUs, dialysis units, and wards of the hospitals in the national capital.
According to the instructions, corona-infected health workers, undiagnosed infected patients admitted in ICU, patients without a diagnosis in dialysis units, can spread corona infection in hospitals. Therefore, health workers engaged in the care of patients admitted in ICU, especially non-infected authorities of all private hospitals and nursing homes, should not be put on duty without corona examination and their RT-PCR test should be conducted at regular intervals.
Corona infected health workers and doctors should not be allowed to join duty until they are diagnosed with coronavirus negative. It should also be ensured that according to the guidelines of the Ministry of Health, Government of India, all health workers have received both doses of coronavirus.
It has also been said in the instruction that all private hospitals and nursing home authorities have to ensure that there is a separate isolation arrangement to manage the patients in the ICU and ward till the RT-PCR report of the patient is received.
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