Delhi preparing for Covid's third wave, more vaccines needed: Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said that the national capital is preparing for the third wave of COVID-19 and the infrastructures are being scaled up to deal with 30,000 daily cases.

The Chief Minister, during a visit to the makeshift COVID care center near the GTB hospital, said, "A 500 ICU beds have been set up near GTB Hospital and another 500 ICU beds have been set up near LNJP Hospital."

"We must prepare for the third wave. In this wave, Delhi recorded a maximum of 28,000 cases in a day. The whole infrastructure was under pressure after this. The scale at which we are creating infrastructure, we will be able to deal even if 30,000 daily cases are reported in next wave," Kejriwal told media personnel.

Kejriwal said that the Delhi government has been left with the Covid vaccine stock for 3-4 days.

"Vaccine has played a major role in curbing the COVID-19 cases. We can be preventing the third wave if we vaccinate people on a large scale but the supply of vaccine is an issue," he said.

The Delhi CM further said, "We have placed orders with companies.. We request the Centre to give us more vaccines."

Kejriwal had earlier written to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan urging to increase the monthly supply of vaccines to the national capital.

In the letter, Kejriwal also requested that a uniform price be fixed for the vaccines for supplies made to governments and to private hospitals.

He also requested the Centre for the implementation of the Universal Immunisation program and to direct Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech to increase monthly supplies to Delhi to 60 lakh doses from May to July.

According to the official data, the national capital recorded 12,651 new COVID-19 cases and 319 deaths in the last 24 hours. The active cases of COVID-19 in Delhi stand at 85,258.

( With inputs from ANI )