New Delhi, June 9: The all party meeting with Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal over the prevailing COVID-19 situation in Delhi began on Tuesday. The meeting is being held at the residence of LG Delhi. Earlier today, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria has accepted that there is community transmission in the national capital but it is up to the Centre to make a declaration about it.
"AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria has said that there is a community transmission in Delhi but the Centre has not accepted it yet. We cannot declare it and the declaration is up to the Centre. Community spread is a technical term and it depends on the Centre whether they accept it or not. There are four stages in epidemiology in which the third stage is the community spread," Jain said when asked about whether community transmission has started in Delhi. Delhi L-G Anil Baijal Reverses Arvind Kejriwal's Order to Test Only Symptomatic Patients for COVID-19, Says Asymptomatic Also to be Tested.
"We say community spread when people do not know how they get the infection. There are many cases. Around half of cases are coming in which people do not know how they get infected," he added
The Health Minister slammed Baijal and said he had overturned Delhi government's decision of reserving hospital beds for residents of the city under pressure from the BJP. On Monday, Baijal, who is the chairperson of Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), directed authorities to ensure that treatment is not denied to any patient on grounds "of being a non-resident of the national capital".
The order by the LG, which also directed all government and private hospitals and nursing homes to cater to the needs of patients, came a day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that hospitals in Delhi, except those run by the Centre, will only be available for residents of the national capital in view of rising COVID-19 cases.