Five days after the Supreme Court stressed the need to be prepared for the probable ‘third wave’ of the COVID19 pandemic in the country, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has issued directives to the state officials to ensure the preparations.

In a set of directives issued for the state officials, CM Adityanath stated that special arrangements for the treatment of children needs to be made in all districts.

“For this purpose, pediatric ICUs with a capacity of a minimum of 10-15 beds in all district hospitals and 25-30 beds in medical colleges should be prepared.There should be a minimum 100-bed pediatric ICU at Divisional Headquarters,” the press statement quoted CM Adityanath as directing.

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The set of directives also entailed setting up of oxygen plants in 70 districts across Uttar Pradesh. 

“The Chief Secretary should continue to monitor the plants being set up by the Government of India. Sugarcane Development and Excise Department have also got support in oxygen production and supply. Action is being taken to set up an oxygen plant in 70 districts,” the statement stated.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah, on May 6, had taken note of the experts’ opinion about the third wave of the pandemic is around the corner. While addressing Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, the Supreme Court had also stressed the need to take up measures to ramp up oxygen production and ensure that arrangements are made to be prepared for treating children if they begin to contract the virus, as feared by the experts.

“We may enter stage three [third wave] and if we prepare today we may be able to handle it. Whatever stocks procured needs to be sent to hospitals. It’s not about allocating it to the state but also the logistics to see that it is distributed to hospitals,” Justice Chandrachud was quoted as saying.

“…So when a child goes to hospital, a mother and father will go, too,” Justice Chandrachuhad  had said. “That is why vaccination will have to be over for this group of people. We need to plan for this in a scientific way and make arrangements,” Justice Chandrachud added.

The Uttar Pradesh government’s press release also informed that global tenders have also been issued. “Additional tankers have been received from Reliance Industries. The number of tankers is increasing steadily, this has helped to further improve oxygen supply,” it stated.

Meanwhile, the statement also took note of the door-to-door screening exercise which was launched by CM Adityanath on May 5. Named as the ‘COVID Samvedikaran Abhiyan’ (COVID Sensitisation Campaign), the screening exercise is being conducted by frontline workers such as ASHAs and ANMs, along with other district and health officials.

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“This campaign is getting positive results. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also praised our campaign today. This campaign of mass publicity should be conducted with full readiness,” the statement noted.

The rural drive seeks to raise awareness about COVID19 in the rural areas along with the screening of people for the symptoms of the disease and provide medical arrangements to serious patients. 

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh recorded 20,463 fresh COVID19 cases on April 11 that took the total tally to 15,45,212, while 306 deaths pushed the death toll to 16,043.