Delhi, the national capital of India, will be under complete curfew from Monday night till next Monday morning amid the massive spike in COVID-19 cases. Delhi was already under a weekend curfew which was called to stem the "unprecedented" COVID-19 spread, which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called the "fourth" and the "worst wave" with over 25,000 daily cases and the health infrastructure stretched to the limit. 

Kejriwal said less than 100 ICU beds were available in hospitals.

Kejriwal on Sunday wrote to Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, over an "acute shortage of oxygen supply" in Delhi.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister has sought a reservation of 7,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 and oxygen supply.

The country on Monday reported 2,73,810 new cases,  at a time hospitals in various Indian states are getting overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, the government said over 1.2 million vaccination doses were administered to the beneficiaries across India in the last 24 hours in the ongoing vaccination programme, taking the cumulative vaccine doses administered so far to over 12 million, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Monday.

India launched a vaccination programme in the middle of January in phases for health care and frontline workers and people above 45 years of age.

Two vaccines - indigenously developed Covaxin and UK's AstraZeneca vaccine called Covishield - are being administered while the government has also given approval for those vaccines cleared by agencies in Europe or US.

Ten states including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka,Kerala,Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan report 78.58 per cent of the new cases.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 68,631. It is followed by Uttar Pradesh with 30,566 while Delhi reported 25,462 new cases.

As many 1,619 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Ten states account for 85.11 per cent of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (503). Chhattisgarh follows with 170 daily deaths, IBNS said quoting various agencies.

(SAM)