Return to icu aiding the national capital’s third covid peak governance shortfalls aplenty

Return to icu aiding the national capital’s third covid peak governance shortfalls aplenty

November has been the cruellest month for the country’s capital. The day after Diwali saw it suffering the most polluted air in the world. For connected reasons, in these weeks it has also perhaps seen the worst Covid spike experienced by any city so far. The pandemic thrives on governance shortfalls and Delhi’s have been very painfully exposed, despite its being the national capital. Or perhaps that precisely is its problem, as the city state’s divided authority structure makes it easy to pass the buck. Eight months on, third Covid peak in, the tragedy is how many times the same lessons need relearning.

On Tuesday just over 49,000 tests were conducted, of which rapid antigen tests were in the solid majority of 32,431. Consider both the low proportion of RT-PCR tests and that this is overall a lower testing level than mid-September, even though cases have ominously risen since then. Meanwhile, health minister Satyendar Jain makes unsubstantiated and misleading claims such as the third wave being caused by aggressive testing, and the peak having passed. Perhaps this is just political rhetoric. But it detracts from ramping up the anti-Covid effort.

Even the way in which the state government has fixated on reserving ICU beds for Covid-19 patients has the hallmarks of a knee jerk reaction. Doctors have made plain the toll this takes on non-Covid patients, who too can have serious medical problems. What is required is rapidly scaling up bed and ICU capacity to meet the situation, including in makeshift facilities. To this end, the Centre and even other states where the situation has improved should provide optimum support at a time when deaths are rising worryingly in the capital.