JUST TEN days in the past, an Empowered Group of Officers below Niti Aayog Member Dr V Ok Paul, had instructed authorities, together with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW), to take pressing measures for oxygen provision to fulfill a surge of three lakh new instances a day by April 20, and a surge of 5 lakh new instances a day by finish of April.
This Empowered Group-1 on ‘medical infrastructure and Covid management plan’, below Dr Paul, who’s a member of the federal government’s core group responding to the pandemic, had additionally really helpful “extraordinary measures to ramp up oxygen provision” below a ‘Plan B’ to fulfill a surge of 6 lakh new instances a day.
“The urgency of the worsening pandemic situation with implication for oxygen availability should be conveyed to EG-2,” it mentioned. The main accountability of this Empowered Group-2 EG-2 below Dr Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), is to make sure important medical gear together with medical oxygen to affected states.
Sources mentioned that after a gathering within the first fortnight of April, the Empowered Group-I, headed by Dr Paul, really helpful to the federal government to discover the “Plan ‘B’.
In a press assertion, the MoH&FW mentioned the Centre has expressed the pressing want for states to contemplate strict Covid administration and management measures in surge areas to carry the state of affairs below management. “The existing infrastructure may not be able to cope with this kind of surge,” it mentioned.
But the federal government had an thought of its infrastructure through the peak of the primary wave in September final yr too. The EG-1 on ‘medical infrastructure’ had final September mentioned that to fulfill a surge of three lakh new instances a day, the nation wanted 1.6 lakh ICU beds, and three.6 lakh non-ICU beds. It additionally mentioned 75 per cent of non-ICU beds ought to be enabled for oxygen supply.
In its third report on ‘Health System Preparedness Needs’ for September-November 2020, the Group had mentioned until containment methods had been intensified, India would face surges of about 3 lakh new instances by the second week of November/ early December.
Stating India can’t deal with surges of over 2 lakh instances a day, it had underlined the necessity for scaling-up non-Covid Care and different measures.
