45k Cases/Day: IIT Warns Delhi To Be Ready For Worst-Case Scenario

With 9,000 Patients Projected To Need Hospitalisation, City May Require 944MT Of O2 Daily

- Abhinav Garg

New Delhi: Delhi needs to be prepared to handle around 45,000 Covid-19 infections daily with 9,000 patients needing hospitalisation in the “worst-case scenario” of a third wave hitting the capital hard, a report by IIT-Delhi says. To overcome such a crisis, the city would need 944 metric tonnes of oxygen daily to be shared between hospitals and refillers, mentioned the report filed in Delhi High Court on Friday.

A bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh asked Delhi government to file a chart within four weeks indicating the timeline within which several steps could be implemented based on the recommendations. The court identified one of the findings of the report as crucial that apart from decentralised plants, oxygen generation units could be set up by the government at various locations and hospitals.

“We are dealing with a once-in-a-century pandemic... To go by historical evidence, the last pandemic was in 1920. Setting up of an oxygen manufacturing plant would go a long way. You should consider it as paramount. That will take care of so many things — storage, movement, evaporation,” the bench observed.