PUNE: Divisional commissioner Saurabh Rao on Wednesday said 12,000 additional beds for Covid-19 patients could be made available for use in a week in the district, taking the total number to 20,000 ahead of the possible third wave.
“We were told to be ready for one-and-half-times the number of patients during the peak of the second wave, which was on April 19 in Pune district. The administration has readied the adequate health infrastructure for the same,” Rao said.
Over the last two months, 8,000 beds Covid-19 were made ready in the district. The infrastructure is in place to add another 12,000 beds in a week’s time in private and government facilities, which would push up the total capacity to 20,000 beds.
The state anticipates that 65% would require home isolation and 35% patients would require hospitalisation in case of a third wave of Covid-19.
Rao, the Pune divisional commissioner, said the district had concentrated on oxygen availability and oxygen storage front, too. Over the last one month, the administration managed to increase the production of daily oxygen by 55 metric tonnes (MT) and in the next two-three weeks, another 50 MT would be added.
“The daily production would increase by 100 MT from the existing supply through our Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants and oxygen generation plants,” Rao said.
During the second wave, the oxygen requirement went up to 360 MT per day in the district. The state directed all the local administrations to make arrangement for three times the oxygen supply. The divisional commissioner said they had readied up to 1,200 MT storage facilities.
The district administration is also maintaining a close watch on Covid norms violations, especially after large scale opening in all the three administrative units. “We are encouraging residents to follow the protocols instead of taking just punitive action,” Rao said.
State task force member Dr Shashank Joshi said the third wave likelihood and severity was speculative as of now. “It would largely depend on people and whether they follow protocols or not. Proper preparedness is important so that we are not caught off-guard,” he said.
“We are taking abundant precautions and it (third wave) is most likely to be mutated and delayed unless there is a new variant of concern,” said the task force member. He also said barring five-six districts, the rest of the state appeared to be out of the second wave.
