*CM Arvind Kejriwal visits DRDO-built Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel COVID-19 Hospital in Delhi*

New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday visited the DRDO-built Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel COVID-19 Hospital in Delhi. The newly-setup hospital has the capacity of 1000 beds, including 250 ICU beds reserved for critical patients. The Delhi Chief Minister was accompanied by Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah, Health Minister Shri Harsh Vardhan, and Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh. The hospital has been constructed by the DRDO in 11 days in Delhi’s cantonment area as a temporary structure.

Briefing the media on his visit, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said, “For now, there is no scarcity of hospital beds, we have over 15,000 beds out of which 5300 are occupied. There is a paucity of ICU beds. If there is any spike in COVID cases, these ICU beds are very critical for us.”

“DRDO’s 1,000-bed coronavirus hospital is ready. I thank the central government on behalf of Delhiites. It (hospital) has 250 ICU beds, which is very much needed in Delhi at the moment,” tweeted the CM.

Delhi has reported around 97000 cases so far; of them, 68256 patients have recovered. The recovery rate of Delhi has crossed 70%, and the number of hospitalized patients has gone down from 6200 to 5300.  CM Arvind Kejriwal also asserted that the 1000-bed facility was a much-needed measure at this point of time to ease out the provision of beds to the patients. He said that even though the number of cases that require hospitalization has gone down, this facility will prove to be useful for a lot of people who are in urgent need of beds.