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Punjab govt orders 10,000 Covid tests in schools daily
The chief secretary directed that a target of 40,000 samples per day must be achieved and testing shall be further increased if the Covid cases rise
The Punjab government on Wednesday ordered to conduct at least 10,000 RT-PCR tests in state schools daily, after 26 students tested positive for coronavirus in the past two days.
Chairing a coronavirus review meeting, chief secretary Vini Mahajan directed the departments concerned to conduct at least 10,000 Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests and the DCs to ensure that only fully vaccinated teaching and non-teaching staff was allowed to attend the schools.
She directed that a target of 40,000 samples per day must be achieved and testing shall be further increased if the Covid cases rise.
The CS also expressed concern over the movement of people to Punjab from neighbouring states, where the virus cases were once again on the rise, and asked the officials concerned to keep a close watch on the positivity rate ahead of the festival season when extra vigil was required to prevent the surge of virus.
Instructing all the districts to continue aggressive testing and contact tracing and testing to check the spread of the pandemic, she said epidemiologists have been appointed in all the districts and all-out efforts should be made to thwart the possible third Covid wave.
Quoting the forecast from University of Cambridge, Mahajan said going with the forecast, new cases can be expected to double in about 64 days (under the assumption that the growth rate remains constant).
She expressed satisfaction over the fact that 2,45,823 samples have been taken in the past week from August 3 to 9, and only 352 had tested positive, which accounted for a positivity rate of 0.1%.
