COVID-19 situation better in Delhi than June: Kejriwal

PTI, Jul 15, 2020, 5:27 PM IST

New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday, July 15 said the current COVID-19 situation in the national capital is better than what it was in June, but the war against the disease has not been won yet.

He said had the Delhi government fought the virus alone, it would have “failed” and therefore his dispensation sought cooperation from the BJP-led Centre, NGOs, and other organizations.

“Our first principle was that this fight cannot be won alone,” Kejriwal said.

The chief minister said the AAP government will continue its preparations to deal with any spike in COVID-19 cases.

Addressing an online media briefing, the chief minister said according to the Centre’s formula, Delhi was expected to have 2.25 lakh cases by July 15, but at present, there are only 1.15 lakh cases.

As the COVID-19 cases had started rising in the first week of June, it was expected that there would be 1.34 lakh active cases by July 15, but till date, there are only 18,600 active cases in the city.

“We are in a better situation today, as compared to June, but it does not mean we have won the war (against COVID-19). We have yet to go a long way. There may be a spike again in COVID-19 cases. We don’t have to be complacent. We will not sit idle. We will have to be fully prepared,” Kejriwal said.

The ‘Delhi Model’, which was recently praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is based on collective efforts by the AAP government, the Centre, other organizations, and all political parties, he said and thanked the BJP the and Congress for their cooperation.

The chief minister said the Delhi government worked on three principles after realizing that the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be won alone.

“If the Delhi government had thought it would win the fight against coronavirus alone, we would have failed. Our first principle was that this fight cannot be won alone.

“Our second principle was that we did not criticize our critics for their views about our work. We improved things after somebody flagged it. The third principle was that we did not accept defeat.

Had we accepted defeat, there would have been a surge in the numbers of deaths,” he also said.

According to Kejriwal, the government scaled-up testing for COVID-19 aggressively and daily 20,000 to 23,000 tests are being conducted in Delhi.

“The COVID-19 situation is under control, but we will continue our preparations against the virus,” he said.

Lauding his government’s home-isolation policy, he said that due to it, people are coming forward in large numbers to undergo tests.

“There are 15,500 beds in COVID-19 care facilities. On June 1, we had only 300 ICU beds, but today, we have 2,100 ICU beds out of which 1,000 have so far been occupied,” he said.

On Tuesday, Delhi recorded 1,606 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally in the city to over 1.15 lakh, while the death toll from the disease mounted to 3,446.