Doctors at India’s largest hospital treating coronavirus patients said they are prepared if infections increase again in the capital, while rising cases in other parts of the country pushed the number of infections past 1mn on Friday.
The 2,000-bed Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital has been at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic in New Delhi, having treated over 6,000 Covid-19 patients.
Now patient numbers have fallen in the city.
“Even if we have larger number and a second wave comes (in New Delhi), then we have very excellent facility and we are prepared for that,” the hospital’s medical director, Suresh Kumar, said.
The Covid-19 ward, bustling with patients at the start of pandemic, was largely quiet with only a few beds occupied on Friday.
But patients were trickling in. Staff wheeled in a 29-year-old man on a stretcher with a hand on his chest, his mother walking in next to him.
The ICU had relatively more patients.
When the pandemic started to sweep New Delhi a few months ago, the hospital scrambled to find enough beds or equipment.
Infections numbers are now rising in the smaller towns and villages rather than in cities like New Delhi and Mumbai that were the initial hotspots, so doctors at the hospital say they have had a chance to catch a breath.
Kumar said that in the course of the fight against the disease, two hospital staff had died.
In other developments, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the first plasma bank in the state at the Manjeri Medical College Hospital in the Malappuram district was doing great service to serious Covid-19 patients. 
Plasma therapy has proved to be a success, Vijayan said, adding “22 people discharged from hospitals have donated plasma. Over 210 people are waiting to do the same. Plasma from Manjeri was also administered to a serious patient in Alappuzha. It proved a success.”
Meanwhile in West Bengal, the government said it has no plans to impose an immediate lockdown across the state to combat the pandemic.
“We have no plans of introducing lockdown in West Bengal as of now. Only in the containment zones will there be a strict lockdown,” Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said a press conference in Kolkata.
Sinha said the situation is under control and the health department is working relentlessly to provide treatment to Covid-19 patients.
“We are capable of dealing with the situation. I urge people not to panic. The situation is quite under control. There will be restrictions only in the containment zones,” Sinha said.