From the time the start of the pandemic in February till now, Delhi has consistently maintained it's 3rd -4th position in terms of the number of patients of this disease, as compared to other states, all of which are bigger than Delhi. While the total number of cases here till 21st September' 2020 were more or less 2.5lacs, the average number of daily deaths in the week preceding 21-9-2020 has been around 35/day. If Monday's 32 deaths are added to the previous figures we see a total 5147 deaths till 25-9-2020 in Delhi alone.

On Monday the total number of new cases for Delhi was 2548.

All these figures can be seen as markers for the challenges that corona has put before Delhi. To assess the contribution of Delhi in India's fight against corona the first & foremost point which we have to keep in mind is that Delhi is the only state where people from other parts of the country think it to be their right to come for treatment and investigations.

Though this situation has been present since before the advent of corona, the pandemic has made things much more complicated and difficult for Delhi administrators. During the lockdown period when the entire nation was under strict orders not to step out even on to the road outside their houses, Delhi saw innumerable corona cases being brought here from other states for treatment & investigations. This prompted the state government to try and restrict outside corona patients to central government hospitals and reserve Delhi government's and Delhi's private hospitals for citizens of Delhi only. But this stand of the state government was immediately and vehemently opposed by the governor Mr Anil Baijal, who was representing the central government. The resultant differences of the two sides made headlines of all dailies in greater part of June'2020. Following these related news items, a reader could have drawn two conclusions; one that the governor was acting in his capacity of Chairman National Disaster Management Committee and was thus protecting the constitution's that particular item which gives every citizen of India full right to seek treatment &/or investigations for his or her ailments from anywhere they deem it necessary. As for the chief minister's order for reserving Delhi hospitals' covid beds for its own residents-he issued it after taking public opinion and received a 90% support to his proposal for which there were more than 2lacs answers. Not just that he even formed a joint committee of five highly placed senior doctors for consulting on the effects of such a step and they unanimously approved it.

That time in June, interstate transport was prohibited and had this order been fully implemented it would have given Delhi advantage of restricting entry into its premises, but once again impartiality in applying rules was overlooked, with the result that though patients from other states were frequently and unhesitatingly being brought here for corona management, for Delhi vehicles needing to cross its borders into adjoining states even for procuring life saving oxygen & medicines there were unending hurdles.

Delhi administration's efforts to reserve Delhi hospital beds for Delhi residents was not universal. They were only trying implementation of this rule for corona patients, and had made it clear that the rule was not meant for patients of any other disease, Before the lockdown period, at any given time 60-65% of Delhi hospitals' beds were occupied by patients from outside the state.

In the early days of the pandemic the total number of corona beds in Delhi's private & state run government hospitals was '1000' and exactly the same number i.e. '1000' was the availability of these corona beds in central government managed hospitals which are AIIMS, Ram Manohar Lohia & Lady Hardinge Medical College Hospital. In such a situation the obvious conclusion should have been "no room for disputes" but what we get in this politics studded country is a drag into an unconceivable, mind boggling, unexpected bag of controversies for even the smallest of issues.

While analysing the performance of Delhi government in handling corona cases one should keep in mind another very important point, that is that Delhi being the Capital of India, most international travellers coming to this country, have their first stopover on Delhi airport, and since corona has been gifted to us by foreign nations, especially China and the Middle Eastern countries, we in Delhi had an early influx and exposure to the disease. However some southern states like Kerela & Mumbai too had a sizeable number of direct to & fro of international flights, which is why Maharashtra, because of Mumbai is still above Delhi in terms of corona cases.

Of 100 confirmed corona cases two will loose their lives, a study of Delhi numbers tells us, which is much more than the national average of 1.6/100.

As a warning to its people, the Delhi government has issued an information bulletin saying that of the total 3081 state administered ICU beds in the city 67.4% are already occupied and that in a short period of 24hrs between last Saturday & Sunday 7000 corona patients had to be hospitalized here! One aspect of this news which should scare us is that since the big private hospitals, having full facilities for managing corona cases are getting full, Delhi citizens who prefer going to private hospitals are now rushing towards middle sized and small setups which are not fully equipped to manage these cases. This increases the risk of spread of the disease many fold, here in Delhi. Here again we find a situation where residents of Delhi have had to compromise with their safety and rights. To understand the background of this situation one has to realize that people living in smaller towns of other states have prior information about these big hospitals of Delhi and bring over their corona patients for direct admission to these hospitals. This is a glaring example of impingement of our rights as Delhi residents.

The end result of this situation is that 30% of corona cases admitted in Delhi hospitals at any given time are from other states. So the Delhi government's health department, in order to reduce this imbalance, decided on 21-9-2020 to add '1500' new beds to its corona reserved beds in the next ten days.

However there is another side to this situation which is not as encouraging and that is that the total number of tests being done here for corona has fallen from '58000' per day in the week preceding 21-9-2020 to a mere '33733' in the next 24hrs. Another shocking news related to the disease is that in a short period of less than three weeks the number of patients in home isolation have increased from '8119' to '18910' and that these home isolation patients are not taking their containment orders seriously, therefore the chief minister of Delhi has issued strict orders that any home isolation patient found to be flouting the rules, should be forcibly shifted to the hospital and will remain there till he gets corona negative.

THE MESSAGE THUS COMES OUT CLEAR THAT IF THE CITY'S ADMINISTRATORS SHOW LAXITY IN PERFORMING THEIR DUTIES, THE SITUATION IS BOUND TO GET OUT OF EVERYBODY'S CONTROL.

Author Bio: A medical graduate from the King George Medical College of Lucknow and a post graduate in health administration. Has been interested in Urdu poetry writing and reading from an early age. The Corona pandemic has been a stimulus for her to take up the socio-medical impact of the pandemic and write on the subject both in Urdu & English. Lives a peaceful semi retired life in a South Delhi journalist colony with a clinic of her own to practice clinical medicine.

From the time the start of the pandemic in February till now, Delhi has consistently maintained it's 3rd -4th position in terms of the number of patients of this disease, as compared to other states, all of which are bigger than Delhi. While the total number of cases here till 21st September' 2020 were more or less 2.5lacs, the average number of daily deaths in the week preceding 21-9-2020 has been around 35/day. If Monday's 32 deaths are added to the previous figures we see a total 5147 deaths till 25-9-2020 in Delhi alone.

On Monday the total number of new cases for Delhi was 2548.

All these figures can be seen as markers for the challenges that corona has put before Delhi. To assess the contribution of Delhi in India's fight against corona the first & foremost point which we have to keep in mind is that Delhi is the only state where people from other parts of the country think it to be their right to come for treatment and investigations.

Though this situation has been present since before the advent of corona, the pandemic has made things much more complicated and difficult for Delhi administrators. During the lockdown period when the entire nation was under strict orders not to step out even on to the road outside their houses, Delhi saw innumerable corona cases being brought here from other states for treatment & investigations. This prompted the state government to try and restrict outside corona patients to central government hospitals and reserve Delhi government's and Delhi's private hospitals for citizens of Delhi only. But this stand of the state government was immediately and vehemently opposed by the governor Mr Anil Baijal, who was representing the central government. The resultant differences of the two sides made headlines of all dailies in greater part of June'2020. Following these related news items, a reader could have drawn two conclusions; one that the governor was acting in his capacity of Chairman National Disaster Management Committee and was thus protecting the constitution's that particular item which gives every citizen of India full right to seek treatment &/or investigations for his or her ailments from anywhere they deem it necessary. As for the chief minister's order for reserving Delhi hospitals' covid beds for its own residents-he issued it after taking public opinion and received a 90% support to his proposal for which there were more than 2lacs answers. Not just that he even formed a joint committee of five highly placed senior doctors for consulting on the effects of such a step and they unanimously approved it.

That time in June, interstate transport was prohibited and had this order been fully implemented it would have given Delhi advantage of restricting entry into its premises, but once again impartiality in applying rules was overlooked, with the result that though patients from other states were frequently and unhesitatingly being brought here for corona management, for Delhi vehicles needing to cross its borders into adjoining states even for procuring life saving oxygen & medicines there were unending hurdles.

Delhi administration's efforts to reserve Delhi hospital beds for Delhi residents was not universal. They were only trying implementation of this rule for corona patients, and had made it clear that the rule was not meant for patients of any other disease, Before the lockdown period, at any given time 60-65% of Delhi hospitals' beds were occupied by patients from outside the state.

In the early days of the pandemic the total number of corona beds in Delhi's private & state run government hospitals was '1000' and exactly the same number i.e. '1000' was the availability of these corona beds in central government managed hospitals which are AIIMS, Ram Manohar Lohia & Lady Hardinge Medical College Hospital. In such a situation the obvious conclusion should have been "no room for disputes" but what we get in this politics studded country is a drag into an unconceivable, mind boggling, unexpected bag of controversies for even the smallest of issues.

While analysing the performance of Delhi government in handling corona cases one should keep in mind another very important point, that is that Delhi being the Capital of India, most international travellers coming to this country, have their first stopover on Delhi airport, and since corona has been gifted to us by foreign nations, especially China and the Middle Eastern countries, we in Delhi had an early influx and exposure to the disease. However some southern states like Kerela & Mumbai too had a sizeable number of direct to & fro of international flights, which is why Maharashtra, because of Mumbai is still above Delhi in terms of corona cases.

Of 100 confirmed corona cases two will loose their lives, a study of Delhi numbers tells us, which is much more than the national average of 1.6/100.

As a warning to its people, the Delhi government has issued an information bulletin saying that of the total 3081 state administered ICU beds in the city 67.4% are already occupied and that in a short period of 24hrs between last Saturday & Sunday 7000 corona patients had to be hospitalized here! One aspect of this news which should scare us is that since the big private hospitals, having full facilities for managing corona cases are getting full, Delhi citizens who prefer going to private hospitals are now rushing towards middle sized and small setups which are not fully equipped to manage these cases. This increases the risk of spread of the disease many fold, here in Delhi. Here again we find a situation where residents of Delhi have had to compromise with their safety and rights. To understand the background of this situation one has to realize that people living in smaller towns of other states have prior information about these big hospitals of Delhi and bring over their corona patients for direct admission to these hospitals. This is a glaring example of impingement of our rights as Delhi residents.

The end result of this situation is that 30% of corona cases admitted in Delhi hospitals at any given time are from other states. So the Delhi government's health department, in order to reduce this imbalance, decided on 21-9-2020 to add '1500' new beds to its corona reserved beds in the next ten days.

However there is another side to this situation which is not as encouraging and that is that the total number of tests being done here for corona has fallen from '58000' per day in the week preceding 21-9-2020 to a mere '33733' in the next 24hrs. Another shocking news related to the disease is that in a short period of less than three weeks the number of patients in home isolation have increased from '8119' to '18910' and that these home isolation patients are not taking their containment orders seriously, therefore the chief minister of Delhi has issued strict orders that any home isolation patient found to be flouting the rules, should be forcibly shifted to the hospital and will remain there till he gets corona negative.

THE MESSAGE THUS COMES OUT CLEAR THAT IF THE CITY'S ADMINISTRATORS SHOW LAXITY IN PERFORMING THEIR DUTIES, THE SITUATION IS BOUND TO GET OUT OF EVERYBODY'S CONTROL.

Author Bio: A medical graduate from the King George Medical College of Lucknow and a post graduate in health administration. Has been interested in Urdu poetry writing and reading from an early age. The Corona pandemic has been a stimulus for her to take up the socio-medical impact of the pandemic and write on the subject both in Urdu & English. Lives a peaceful semi retired life in a South Delhi journalist colony with a clinic of her own to practice clinical medicine.