COVID-19 pandemic in Delhi

• The first case of coronavirus at Delhi was confirmed on 2 March when a 45 years old person[10] from East Delhi, with a history of travel from Italy,[11] has been tested to be positive for COVID-19. Total 92 contacts of Delhi index case have been traced. Out of these 92 contacts 14 belong to Delhi and rest 74 contacts have been cross notified to respective states. Out of 14 contacts two were symptomatic and found negative for COVID-19.[11]
• After two days without new cases, on 5 March, the second person a 26-year-old Paytm employee from Uttam Nagar, West Delhi having history of travel to Italy and France, who had arrived at Delhi on 26 February tested positive.[12] His all (Four) family members are also asymptomatic, put under home quarantine and their samples have been taken. Contact tracing of the person at his office was done and a list of 91 employees was received out of which 18 contacts of Delhi have been shared with district teams for surveillance. 1 contact each from Faridabad and Noida and remaining 71 are from Gurugram. Information has been sent to their respective District surveillance officers.[12]
• On 6 March 3 positive case reported from Uttam Nagar. There are 8 members in family, including him.[13] Samples of all family members have been collected. The details of contact tracing, of case no 1 to 3. Case no 1 -Total no of contact traced 105 til date. His contact from Delhi and outside are 41 and 64 respectively. Number of sample sent based on risk stratification 19, all had been in home quarantine. Case no 2 - Total no of contact traced 95. Contact from Delhi 22 and outside 73, 93 at home, 2 at hospital. Number of sample sent based on risk stratification 4. Case no 3-Total no of contact traced 11. Contact from Delhi 11 and all at home. Number of sample sent based on risk stratification 11.[13]
• On 9 March 4 positive case reported. 76 Contact traced who are from Delhi and in home quarantine.[14]
• On 11 March 5 th case of Delhi, reported today from Janakpuri, a 46 yrs male, having history of travel to Japan, Geneva and Italy.[15] He is admitted at RML hospital. There are 9 members in his family, all are asymptomatic except his mother. Surveillance of nearby 50 houses has been done.[16]
• On 12 March 6th Case of Delhi, reported from Janakpuri, a 69 yrs female, having history of contact with 5th case (Mother). She is admitted in RML hospital. There are 9 members in her family, as per report provided by RML Hospital the condition of the patient is unstable and rest of the family members are asymptomatic.[17]
• On 14 March as per MOHFW, report case no 6, mother of case 5 expired on 13 March. The death was due to comorbidity (diabetes and hypertension)[15] with COVID-19 and she was second victim in India, due to this virus.[18] 7 th case reported positive on 13 March, isolated at Safdarjung Hospital. He is a resident of Rajasthan and an evacuee from Italy who was quarantined at Manesar Camp.[19]

On 24 June 2020,the Radhasoami Satsang Beas,the Delhi government with the help of Central government and cisf set up the world's largest temporary COVID-19 care hospital of 10,000 beds, as the country grapples with rapidly rising cases.[21] World largest covid hospital at Radhasoami satsang Ghar:

In May, 2020, RSSB recognized the requirement for a large field hospital to serve the Delhi COVID-19 patients. The State of Delhi needed to prepare for a very serious outbreak. Accordingly, RSSB made available to the Government the entire religious meeting centre owned by RSSB in the Chhatarpur suburb of Delhi.

The property covers 300 acres of land of which 70 acres have been set aside for the care centre. This area includes a covered meeting area of 29 acres (the size of 22 football fields), 500 toilets, 450 bathrooms, and car parking for 1500 vehicles. A huge team, comprising volunteers from RSSB, government staff, and members of the (ITBP), created a comprehensive care facility in record time. The floor was covered by RSSB in vinyl to enable hygienic cleaning. The Government installed 18,000 tons of air-conditioning to cool the area.

One hundred enclosures have been constructed with 100 beds each. The beds are spaced five feet apart. Each bed has been provided with a small cupboard, stool, dustbin, and toiletry kit. Included in the bed count are a large number of biodegradable beds manufactured from cardboard, each of which will be discarded after a single use and replaced by a new one. Oxygen support is available at 10% of the beds. The centre will have two sections – one for asymptomatic patients who have tested positive for the virus and one for the patients who are suffering symptoms. The facility was created by the District Administration with full support of the ministry of home affairs on an emergent basis.

The facility has been named “Sardar Patel COVID Care Centre and Hospital”. With the intent to evaluate the suitability and adequacy of the arrangements, it was earlier visited by the Honourable Home Minister of India and Honourable Chief Minister of Delhi on 27th June, 2020.

The facility was inaugurated by Mr. Anil Baijal, Honourable Lieutenant Governor of Delhi on July 05, 2020.

Patients and staff will receive three meals a day prepared on site in the facility's industrial scale kitchens run by Radhasoami beas volunteers. Each patient will receive vegetarian food and vitamin supplements as recommended by the doctors. RSSB is providing all food and support services free of charge. One example that illustrates the enormous scale of the project is that three vegetarian meals a day will be provided for all the 10,000 patients and 2,000 health care workers. Meals will be served in disposable food-grade plates. Many of the healthcare workers will also be accommodated on the campus.

This facility, having largest number of beds, in one single campus, requires speed of management as well as analysis and operations that make it imperative to explore the extensive use of information technology.

The Tablighi Jamaat wanted to arrange the program somewhere in Vasai, Maharashtra. After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Maharashtra, the Government of Maharashtra and Mumbai Police called off the meeting. After the rejection from the Government of Maharashtra, the Nizamuddin faction of the Tablighi Jamaat held the religious congregational program (Ijtema) in Nizamuddin West, Delhi.[22][23][24] The Delhi Government's order of 13 March that no seminars, conferences or any big event (beyond 200 people) are to be held was apparently ignored by the organisation, and the Delhi Police also failed to enforce it.[25][26] There were also other violation of rules by foreign speakers including misuse of tourist visa for missionary activities and not taking 14-day home quarantine for travellers from abroad.[27]

At least 24 of the attendees had tested positive for the virus among the 300 who showed symptoms by 31 March 2020.[28] It is believed that the sources of infection were preachers from Indonesia.[29] Many had returned to their states and also provided refuge to foreign speakers without the knowledge of local governments.[30] and eventually started local transmissions especially in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and Assam. The entire Nizamuddin West area has been cordoned off by the Police as of 30 March, and medical camps have been set up.[31] After evacuation from the markaz, of the scores of jamaat attendees, 167 of them were quarantined in a railway facility in south east Delhi amid concerns over their safety and transmission of the virus. The Tablighi Jamaat gathering emerged as one of India's major coronavirus hotspots in India,[32] after 1445 out of 4067 cases were linked to attendees according to the Health Ministry.[33][34] On 18 April 2020, Central Government said that 4,291 cases (or 29.8% Of the total 14,378 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in India) were linked to the Tablighi Jamaat, and these cases were spread across 23 states and Union Territories.[35]

Questions have been raised as to how the Delhi Police allowed this event to proceed in the midst of a pandemic,[36] while a similar event was prohibited in Mumbai by the Maharashtra Police.[37] Once the COVID lockdown came into effect in Delhi from 22 March onwards, the missionaries remaining in the Nizamuddin Markaz were trapped, and the functionaries began to seek assistance from the authorities for their evacuation.[38] As of 4 April, more than 1000 cases, representing 30% all confirmed cases in India, were linked to the Nizamuddin event. Some 22,000 people that came in contact with the Tablighi Jamaat missionaries had to be quarantined.[39] On 31 March 2020, an FIR was filed against Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi and others by Delhi Police Crime Branch under Section 3 (penalty for offence) of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and Sections 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease), 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) and 120b (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.[40][41][42] On 8 April 2020, the Delhi Police traced Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi in Zakirnagar in South-East Delhi, where he claimed to be under self-quarantine.[43] Many other members of the missionary group have also been booked for allegedly helping spread the disease, including by hiding in mosques, a police official claimed. However, the Government of India has denied that it is singling out Muslims.[44]

As per some leading media outlets in India, Delhi Government may have hidden many of the deaths. The central government run Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and AIIMS have accused the present state government of not showing the true figures. The death toll as per some estimates could run well into 900+ [78] [79]

On 13 April, in Delhi 14,036, COVID-19 testing had been done in which positive cases are 1,154 in total and percentage wise its 8.22%. Population of Delhi is 201,78,879 (20 million plus) falls under category of the states having population 11 to 37 million and till 13 April 2020, 696 test/million had been conducted in Delhi which is second highest after Kerala in this category.[81]

On 21 April, the Delhi Govt. announced free COVID-19 test for media persons in Delhi after the incident of some journalists in Mumbai tested positive.[82]

As of 12 August, in Delhi 1,242,739 COVID-19 testing had been done in which positive cases are 253,075[83]

• 13 April, ICMR requested researcher to give a clinical trial on the critically ill patient of COVID-19 using convalescent plasma therapy.[85]
• 15 April, after a meeting Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal had declared Delhi may use plasma technique to combat COVID-19. He mentioned that it will be on a trial basis with proper guideline.[85]
• 20 April, a 49-year-old, critically ill patient of COVID-19 who was on ventilator support is out from ventilator after receiving plasma therapy. This is the first successful trial of plasma therapy in India.[86]
• 24 April, as per feedback of CM Delhi, plasma therapy has been tried on 4 patients in LNJP hospital, all of them had responded positively. Two of them might get released from the hospital very shortly. Delhi Government seeking permission from Central Government to apply same therapy to all serious patients.[87]
• June 3 the Delhi Health Department ordered three hospitals in the national capital to provide 10 per cent of their beds to COVID-19 patients of Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) free of cost.[88]
• 5 July India's first plasma bank to treat COVID-19 patient had become operational at Delhi. Plasma bank set up was needed to have systematic donation from volunteers who have recently recovered from COVID-19 and fulfilled eligibility criteria.[89]

The Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai visiting evacuees at the Coronavirus Quarantine Centre, after completion of their requisite quarantine period, at the ITBP Chhawla Centre, in New Delhi on 13 March 2020.

• On 26 March, Delhi Government had started declaring hotspot area starting from few places of Dilshad garden.[96]
• 14 April after adding eight new hotspots, now total hotspot numbers are 55 in Delhi.[97]
• 15 April after adding two more places, total hotspot numbers are 57.[98]
• 19 April now there are total 77 containment zones and all 11 districts of Delhi are declared as hotspots as conveyed by Delhi CM[57]
• 21 April the number of containment zones rises to 87 [99]
• 28 April after adding two more places, total containment zones rises to 100.[96]

The Delhi Government announced operation SHIELD in order to curb the spread of the virus in the containment zones or the hotspots. It is a six layers plan,[100] where

• S refers to sealing the immediate area,
• H refers to home quarantine to all people living in the area,
• I refers to isolation and contact tracing of people,
• E refers to essential supply of commodities,
• L refers to local sanitization and
• D refers to door to door health check of people in the area.

The first success of the operation came from Dilshad Garden, an area where the virus was widely spread. The Delhi Government announced on 10 April, that the operation SHIELD was successful in containing the spread of the virus in this area. The state Health Minister, Satyendra Jain said that the area was virus-free after the implementation of the six layer operation.[101] On 17 April, Deputy CM of Delhi, Manish Sisodia announced that the operation was also successful in two other hotspots, Vasundhara Enclave and Khichripur.[102]

• COVID-19 pandemic in India
• COVID-19 lockdown in India

• Govt site link for bed availability