How Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal led the fight against COVID-19 from the forefront

NEW DELHI: While the AAP government in Delhi has taken a slew of measures to control the spread of deadly coronavirus in the national capital, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too led the fight against COVID-19 from the forefront.

Due to the collective efforts of the Centre, Delhi government, Delhi hospitals, health workers, the COVID-19 recovery rate in the national capital has gone up while the mortality rate has seen a sharp decline.

While the nationwide lockdown announced in March helped contain a rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, it brought with it other socio-economic crises with people losing their jobs, daily wage earners being left with no means to earn a living, migrants being stranded without food and shelter and an acute fall in government revenues. It was clear that a lockdown couldn’t be a long-term strategy and the economy would need to be gradually opened up. 

Unlock 1.0, announced by the Central Government, which started on June 1 did begin to pick up the economy but brought with it difficulties for Delhi. In the first week of June, Delhi started witnessing a rising number of cases, a rising number of deaths and because of these a rapidly rising panic amongst the citizens of Delhi. At this moment, Delhi CM decided to lead the battle against COVID-19 from the forefront. 

Public engagement and participation

This proved to be a ‘trump card’ of the Arvind Kejriwal government not just in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but behind many success stories of the AAP government.

Direct Public Engagement by the Chief Minister

Throughout the pandemic the Chief Minister himself has kept a direct engagement with the people of Delhi - be it explaining Home Isolation, how oximeters work, why plasma should be donated, how hospitals beds are being increased. 

This engagement has meant that the people of Delhi have always been informed by a trusted voice about where the city stands in its ability to confront the Coronavirus. This engagement has also been important because controlling a pandemic requires a change in people’s behaviour; and change in behaviour comes from being informed of facts in a credible manner however difficult they may be.

2. Involving all Stakeholders

Instead of relying only on the government machinery to manage this pandemic, the Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, aggressively reached out to different stakeholders to contribute in this fight. From Central government that provided ventilators, masks, testing kits and medical staff, hotels that provided rooms, non-profit organisations that have helped run COVID Care centres, volunteer-doctors who helped man the helplines to counsel COVID-positive patients to civil defence volunteers who helped families in Home Isolation to buy groceries - all of these were brought together by the Chief Minister’s outreach efforts.

It did not stop there; CM representatives were placed in every medical facility to ensure that public grievances were addressed promptly and with a human touch. Chief Minister Fellows and Delhi Legislative Assembly Fellows were pulled out of their offices and placed in district offices to support in the COVID-19 patient management process. Community volunteers were involved in the process of tracing and isolating patients. 

It was this public driven effort that helped stabilise the COVID-19 pandemic in Delhi. 

The success of Delhi in overcoming the Coronavirus lies not just in its capacity to expand hospital infrastructure, increase testing or aggressively isolate but also in its ability to understand the psychological and emotional challenges that this pandemic has created and the political will to resolve the public health crisis in a manner that take cognisance of the state-of-mind of the people of Delhi.