Delhi revises coronavirus strategy, will screen every house by July-6
Delhi, burdened with a surge of coronavirus cases, revised its strategy against the disease after a series of meetings between Home Minister Amit Shah and Aam Aadmi Party, which governs the state. As part of new rules, all houses will be screened in the National Capital by July 6. All residences in containment zones will be screened by June 30, reports said on Wednesday.
How bad is the situation in Delhi?
On Sunday, Delhi became the second worst-affected state as it trumped Tamil Nadu in terms of infections. It currently has 66,602 infected persons and 2,301 have died. The healthcare system is on the verge of collapse, with hospitals not having enough beds for the sick. The horror meted on the deceased even drew the Supreme Court's fury earlier this month.
More testing, random serological tests to understand outbreak
Soon, Centre got involved with Delhi, assuring that testing would be increased to 18,000/day. After a meeting on Sunday, the Home Ministry announced that Delhi will conduct random serological tests on 20,000 people between June 27 and July 10. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal spoke of screenings too. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Delhi reported 3,947 new cases, the largest spurt for any state so far.
Delhi has 261 containment zones
Worryingly, Delhi has some 261 containment zones and the government said surveillance and contact tracing will be strengthened in these areas. Some neighborhoods were sealed to severe the chain of transmission. "More than 2,500 new cases and up to 75 deaths (are) being reported every day (in Delhi). About 45% of the cases are showing signs of clustering in containment zones," the government said.
COVID-19 task forces will now have epidemiologists
Unlike earlier when COVID-19 task forces of districts were overlooked by the district magistrates, the teams will now have district commissioner of police (DCP), civic body officials, epidemiologists, District Surveillance Officer (DSO), and IT professionals. The team will monitor Aarogya Setu app, an app the Centre uses for contact-tracing. Downloading the app would be mandatory in the hotspots, reports said.
Moreover, movements in containment zones will also be monitored
In containment zones, police will restrict movement and keep a tab through CCTV. "Rapid antigen testing will be done in such areas as per the guidelines of the ICMR," the reports read. Further, authorities were directed to evaluate the existing plan of containment zones' demarcation and come up with a new one which consists of buffer zones around the hotspots by June 26.
There will be adequate buffer zones around containment areas
"Once a zone is declared as a containment 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 containment zone," the Delhi government said.
Despite working together, Centre and AAP disagreed on key issues
While the Centre and AAP have joined hands, they disagreed on key points related to treatment and quarantine. Last week, L-G Anil Baijal mandated that all coronavirus patients must remain in institutional quarantine for at least five days. The order created chaos and didn't find support in the AAP government, which said medical infrastructure would be burdened. On Saturday, the contentious order was withdrawn.
Centre's order related to patients' check-up also miffed AAP
Just as the quarantine issue reached a consensus, Centre said all patients must get themselves checked at coronavirus-dedicated clinics. This too didn't sit well with AAP. Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said the ongoing system, wherein a government team visits a COVID-19 patient to ascertain whether they need to be sent to centers or if home-isolation is enough, was much better.
