Amid an alarming spike in Coronavirus cases in the national capital, every house in Delhi will be screened by July 6, the government has said as it revised its COVID response plan to check the spread of the deadly infection.
As per the revised guidelines, all containment zones will be reviewed, redesigned by June 26 and the screening of every house in these zones will be done by June 30.
The screening of the rest of Delhi will be completed by 6 July.
The move comes as Delhi on Tuesday overtook Tamil Nadu on Sunday as the second worst-hit state by the pandemic after Maharashtra. The national capital now has 66,602 cases with the biggest single-day jump of 3,947 fresh infections and 2,301 deaths.
Currently, there are 261 containment zones in capital.
“More than 2,500 new cases and upto 75 deaths (are) being reported every day (in Delhi). About 45 per cent of the cases (in containment zones) are showing signs of clustering in containment zones,” the Delhi government said.
As per new rules, Aarogya Setu App has to be installed by all, especially by those in the containment zones.
Surveillance team will now be strengthened at the district level and the members will include DCP, Municipal DC, epidemiologists, District Surveillance Officer (DSO), IT professionals, who will monitor the Aarogya Setu.
“Once a zone is declared as a container zone, it will have to strictly follow the rules and active case search will be done inside the containment zone. There will be a sufficient number of buffer zones around the container zone,” the Delhi government stated.
Coronavirus positive patients and cluster cases in densely populated areas will be sent to COVID care centres. More teams will be created for contact searching, testing and isolating patients.
In containment zones, movement will be restricted by police by use of CCTV cameras and the state government has planned to step up efforts for “testing and isolation”.
“Rapid antigen testing will be done in such areas as per the guidelines of the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research),” according to the new ‘Delhi Covid Response Plan’.
The state task force will be headed by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The new rules come a week after a string of meetings between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the Delhi CM.
Amit Shah, for the third time last week, reviewed the Coronavirus situation in Delhi on Sunday with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and discussed recommendations made by Dr Vinod Paul committee on strategy to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the national capital.
At the virtual meeting it was decided that Delhi will conduct serological test of 20,000 samples from June 27.
Amit Shah also directed the Delhi government to alert the ministry on each death with details of the patient. It also said patients with no comorbidity can be kept in home isolation.
On June 18, the Home Minister reviewed the situation in the National Capital Territory.
On June 14, Amit Shah held two high-level meetings on management of the worrying COVID-19 situation in Delhi.
The first meeting was attended by Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and top officials of the Union Home and Health Ministries, while the second was with with mayors and commissioners of Delhi’s three municipal corporations.
The Delhi government was then asked to increase testing.
The string of meetings come in the backdrop of the apex court’s unambiguous rap on June 12, calling the handling of the situation “horrendous, horrific, and pathetic”.