Covid-19 in Delhi: Amit Shah calls emergency meet to discuss rising Coronavirus cases of at 5pm today

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has called a meeting later today at North Block to take stock of the COVID-19 situation in Delhi; Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, and CM Arvind Kejriwal to be present.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal will be present in the meeting.

Shah and Kejriwal have met at least twice in the last few months to discuss the coronavirus situation in the national capital and the home minister had also intervened when Delhi witnessed its first spike.

Delhi’s coronavirus tally rose to over 4.82 lakh as it recorded 7,340 COVID-19 cases on Saturday and 96 more fatalities that pushed the death toll in the city to 7,519.

These fresh cases were detected from 49,645 tests, including 19,635 RT-PCR ones and 30,010 by rapid antigen tests, conducted the previous day. The positivity rate in the city was 14.78 per cent amid festivities and rising pollution, according to a bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.

In June, Shah and Kejriwal had visited COVID-19 Care Centre at Radha Soami Beas in Chhatarpur after the Chief Minister had written to the former inviting him to inspect the campus. He had also requested for deployment of doctors and nurses from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Army at the Centre.

On account of the winter season and the large influx of patients from festival gatherings, Delhi could experience about 15,000 cases in a day soon, as per the report by the National Centre for Disease Control submitted to Delhi Government last month.

“It is recommended that Delhi should prepare for a daily surge of about 15,000 positive cases and make arrangements for inpatient admissions of patients and moderate and severe disease roughly amounting to 20 percent of this surge,” the report says.

Moreover, Delhi’s daily COVID chart had started its upward climb few days ago. While it crossed the 7,000 mark on November 6, it crossed the 8,000-mark, registering 8,593 cases, which was an all-time high for the city, on November 11.