Omicron Variant: 'We have prepared 30,000 oxygen beds', Says CM Kejriwal

On Tuesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi government is gearing up to fight a possible threat of the Omicron variant. He said that 30,000 oxygen beds are prepared along with ramped up oxygen supply and storage facilities. The chief minister conducted a meeting with government departments and reviewed the preparations.

In the online meeting, he said, “this time, we have prepared 30,000 oxygen beds. Out of these, 10, 000 are ICU beds. There are 6,800 beds under construction that will be ready by February. In every municipal ward we will be able to prepare 100 oxygen beds at a notice of two weeks. There are 270 municipal wards which means we will be able to prepare 27,000 beds at a short notice." 

Further, he said that the government has prepared for home isolation also. During the second wave in April and May, Delhi struggled with an oxygen crisis so the government has created an extra storage facility of 442 metric tonnes of medical oxygen.  

"We had zero capacity to produce oxygen. We have installed PSA plants that can produce 121 MT oxygen. Last time, the hospitals were sending out sending out SOS messages for oxygen. We have directed to install telemetry devices in all oxygen tanks across Delhi so that our war room will be in the know where oxygen is running out," he said. 

"The government has imported 6,000 cylinders from China and there are three private refilling plants that can fill 1500 cylinders per day and we have put up two bottling plants that can fill 1400 cylinders on a daily basis", he said.