Amid a surge in the COVID-19 cases and severe health infrastructure crisis, Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvin Kejriwal has announced that the lockdown has been by one week. A week ago on April 26, the CM had pushed the lockdown by a week saying the severity of COVID-19 persists and the positivity rate has been as high as 36 per cent in the last few days.
The Chief Minister said the onslaught of coronavirus has not subsided even as the government had imposed six days lockdown as a last weapon in its arsenal.
"Everybody voted for extension of lockdown. The positivity rate reached up to 36-37 percent in past few days although it has slightly dipped now. It is around 29 percent today," he said. To keep watch on oxygen availability, the Delhi government has decided that the manufacturers, suppliers and hospitals will update supply and consumption data every two hours on a portal set up by it.
Despite lockdown, the city countinues to see a surge in the cases and also the oxygen crisis has been rising as many hospitals have raised SOS alerts.
However, the directed the Centre to supply 490 metric tonne of allocated oxygen to the national capital on Saturday itself, or face contempt. The court took note of eight deaths in Batra Hospital due to lack of oxygen supply and told the government 'enough is enough'.
"Do you mean we will shut our eyes to the people dying in Delhi," it asked the Centre. "We mean business. Water has gone above the head," the court said and declined to defer its order. The court said the government had made an allocation of oxygen to Delhi and should fulfill it.
