Centre hasn’t yet sought data on Oxygen shortage death, says Delhi’s Health Minister

The Delhi government on Tuesday said the central government has not yet asked them for data regarding oxygen shortage related deaths in the national capital during the COVID-19 second wave.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said, “We haven’t received any letter from the central government asking for the data on oxygen-related deaths.”
Yesterday Delhi reported only 39 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours with a positive rate of only 0.8 per cent, which means that out of 1,000 tests conducted only one or fewer cases is coming positive. However, the Delhi government has started its preparation for the third wave, said Jain.

Asked about the Delta variant, Jain said during the second coronavirus wave itself more than 80 per cent of the cases were of Delta variant. “The fresh samples that we are sending now have more than 80 per cent of the Delta variants case. Earlier we were sending samples to ICMR, they had also told the same. Now we are testing it in our labs, only Delta variants are coming out in them too,” added Jain.
He further said, “We are preparing 37,000 beds, 12,000 ICU beds for the next wave.”

The Delhi government has launched a colour-coded graded response system for COVID-19 management. Its first phase will be implemented with 0.5 per cent positivity. “When the positivity reaches 1 per cent, then we will consider the second phase and 5 per cent as the red level and then implement the third phase,” said Jain.