The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Monday announced that restaurants and bars would remain closed for dine-in services but “take away” services would continue in the national Capital.
In a high-level meeting, chaired by Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal, it was decided that a lockdown would not be imposed in the city.
According to the minutes of the meeting, ways to strictly enforce existing restrictions to check rising cases of Covid -19 and the latest variant Omicron in the Capital were discussed.
In a series of tweets, Baijal informed, “Chaired the 31st meeting of the DDMA to review the Covid-19 situation in Delhi along with Hon’ble CM @ArvindKejriwal, Hon’ble DyCM @msisodia, Hon’ble Ministers @SatyendarJain & @kgahlot, Dr VK Paul-NITIAayog, Chief Secretary, Prof Balram Bhargava-ICMR, Dr Randeep Guleria-AIIMS. Today’s DDMA meeting decided to close restaurants and bars and to allow ‘takeaway’ facilities only. It was also decided to allow operation of only one weekly market per day per zone.”
Baijal also announced that only one weekly market would be allowed to operate per day in each zone.
“The Delhi Health Department was advised to make adequate arrangements for additional manpower in hospitals and to scale up the vaccination efforts, including for those in the age group of 15-18 years,” Baijal said.
It is vital to mention here that Delhi is functioning under “yellow alert” as per the GRAP system that has been in place since December 28. Surprisingly, the city registered 19,166 fresh Covid-19 cases on Monday and 17 deaths, according to the Covid-19 health bulletin of the Delhi Government. The positivity rate was recorded at 25 per cent.
The Delhi Government has also said that the Covid-19 health infrastructure is robust in the city, with a total bed strength in city Government, MCD, private and Centre-run hospitals being 16,380 (Covid oxygenated) and 3,619 (ICU beds) till January 10 this year.
The city Government also prepared a three-stage bed escalation plan to deal with any contingency due to the third Covid wave. In the first stage, the city will be ready with 28,645 (Covid oxygenated beds ) and 8,041 (ICU beds ) in all private, State Government, MCDs and Central Government hospitals.
In the second stage beds would be augmented to 37,000 (Covid oxygenated) and 10,594 (ICU beds) and in the third stage the bed strength would be 50,000 oxygenated and 12,059 (target Covid ICU beds).
Delhi also administered 51,579 vaccine doses for 15-17 years old. In Central Delhi as many as 4,370, East Delhi 4,684, New Delhi 4,240, North Delhi 2,358, North East 5,977, North West 6,158, Shahdara 4,296, South 3,471, South East 5,096, South West 6,571 and in West 4,358 vaccines were administered.