Why enforce lockdowns? Capacity additions not keeping pace with Covid surge

In Delhi, most of the capacity is available in government or smaller private hospitals. In Mumbai, while the city added 40% more ICU beds in the last two weeks, people requiring them increased by 50%

Since the last week, cities like Mumbai and Delhi have been trying to play catch-up with the rising coronavirus infections. As active cases rise, capacity additions in hospitals, ICUs, and ventilators have not kept pace, which is why most cities have been now scuttling to create last-minute arrangements.

Delhi announced a weekend curfew on April 15, while the city has been converting non-Covid facilities into covid hospitals. Maharashtra's government has announced lockdown-like restrictions across the state for 15 days.

The precarious situation is evident from the fact that in the Pune Municipal Corporation area not a single bed is available for ventilators and ICU—a 100% occupancy. In Mumbai, 99% of ventilator beds and 98% of ICU beds are occupied. Delhi is on a relatively better footing with 92% ventilators beds and 85% ICU beds occupied as of April 15, but bear in mind that until a week ago only 65% of ventilators were occupied in the national capital.  

Data from last night’s bulletin shows that in Mumbai of the 15 ventilators available in Covid facilities across the city, only three are in private hospitals. In terms of ICU beds, while private hospitals had a much larger capacity (1341 ICU beds) than government hospitals (1326 ICU beds), the availability is much lower with only 17 of the 42 beds available.

Delhi is no different. However, a Business Standard analysis indicates that most of the capacity in the national capital is either in government hospitals or smaller private hospitals.

The government has been converting more non-Covid hospitals into Covid facilities, so 31% or 4,712 beds are available in the city. But about two-thirds of this capacity or 3,070 beds are in government hospitals. In contrast, large private hospitals (with over 100 beds) have a much lower availability of 17%. Similarly, in the case of ICU beds, while government hospitals have 22.7% beds available, larger hospitals (between 50-100 ICU beds) have only five of total 645 beds available in the city.

While 5.4% ventilators are available in hospitals with over 20 ventilator beds, government hospitals have an 8.1% vacancy. Pair this with the fact that the Delhi government may not have much capacity to expand either. As of today morning, 72% of the non-Covid ICU beds were occupied.

The pace of capacity addition has been much slower than the pace of increase in infections. In Delhi, while the government increased its ICU bed capacity by 146% between April 7 and April 15, people requiring ICU beds has gone up by a whopping 283%. Similarly, while the city added 36% more ventilators during the period, the demand for ventilators has doubled.

In Mumbai, even though the government added 30% more ICU beds and 14% more ventilators between April 7 and April 15, the number of people requiring them increased by 36% and 19%, respectively.