Coronavirus Outbreak
In Delhi’s New COVID-Response Plan, House-to-House Screening Made Compulsory To Contain The Spread Of Virus
With nearly 62,000 coronavirus cases, Delhi has 261 containment zones and to curb the spread of coronavirus in the national capital, Delhi government has drafted a new response plan to fight coronavirus
New Delhi: As the national capital overtook Tamil Nadu last week to become the second worst-hit state by the pandemic after Maharashtra with more than 66,000 coronavirus cases and around 2,301 deaths, the Delhi Government on Tuesday announced a new response plan to fight coronavirus. As per the new COVID-Response plan, every house in Delhi will be screened by July 6 as a part of the new plan to check the spread of coronavirus. Whereas, all houses in the containment zones will be screened by June 30. This new plan has been released after a series of meetings between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the Chief Minister over the last week in the wake of growing coronavirus cases in Delhi.
According to the Delhi Government, currently, Delhi has 261 containment zones, the worst-affected neighbourhoods by the outbreak. As per the new plan, surveillance and contact tracing will be strengthened in these neighbourhoods that have been sealed to break the chain of transmission.
In a statement released by the Delhi Government, it is said,
More than 2,500 new cases and up to 75 deaths (are) being reported every day (in Delhi). About 45 per cent of the cases are showing features of clustering (in containment zones).
On Tuesday, Delhi recorded the biggest single-day jump of 3,947 new infections, the highest reported by any state so far. In a bid to keep these numbers from growing, the new COVID-Response is being made.
Also Read: Delhi Government Asks Labs To Increase Their COVID-19 Testing Capacity
As per the plan, strict monitoring will now be implemented at district-level. The COVID-19 task forces in districts – that was earlier supervised only by the district magistrates – will have the district commissioner of police, civic body officials, epidemiologists from the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi), and IT professionals to monitor Aarogya Setu app, used by the government for contact-tracing. Moreover, the Delhi government will ensure that Aarogya Setu app is downloaded by all, especially in the worst-affected neighbourhoods.
Talking about the containment zones, the movement will be restricted by police by using CCTV cameras and the government is preparing to step up efforts for “testing and isolation”. As per the new guidelines, “Rapid antigen testing will be done in such areas as per the guidelines of the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research).” The state task force will be headed by the Chief Minister.
Also Read: Pick One, Stay Safe: In South Delhi, A Mother And Son Duo Provide Free Homemade Mask
In densely populated areas, arrangements will be made to send patients to COVID-19 care centres. All symptomatic and asymptomatic cases will be tested in containment zones between 5th and 10th day, the new guidelines said.
Not just this, twenty-thousand samples will be collected as a part of a serosurvey, to estimate the prevalence of coronavirus in the national capital, which will start on Saturday (June 27) and the results will be released on July 10.
Last week, to cope up with the crisis of coronavirus, Delhi also got the world’s largest COVID-19 case facility with recyclable beds. South Delhi’s Radha Soami Spiritual Centre in Chhatarpur which, according to the government, is the area wise as large as over 22 football fields or 12,50,000 square feet, is being converted into the world’s largest COVID-19 care facility, with 10,000 beds to scale up the COVID facilities in the national capital.
Apart from this, the Delhi government also ordered the Taj Man Singh Hotel to isolate all its rooms and place them at the disposal for COVID-19 facilities to accommodate more COVID-19 patients in the national capital. Similar to Hotel Taj Mansingh, New Friends Colony’s The Surya hotel will be provided to Holy Family Hospital and Crowne Plaza hotel is handed over to Batra Hospital to help with the shortage of COVID-19 beds.
[corona_data_new]