‘Ensure strict compliance of Covid-19 testing guidelines’: Kejriwal directs officials

Kejriwal said that hotels that were attached to hospitals to increase the number of beds for Covid-19 patients in Delhi are now being released.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday directed officials to ensure strict compliance of Covid-19 testing guidelines. As per the existing guidelines, if a patient’s antigen test comes out negative but the person shows symptoms, the RT-PCR test must be done on the patient.

File photo: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal addresses during a joint press conference in New Delhi. (ANI)

Kejriwal tweeted out saying that some hotels that were attached to hospitals to increase the number of beds for Covid-19 patients are now being released.

The chief minister also hailed the new employment portal launched by the administration and said he is glad to learn that the “it is proving useful to both job-seekers and businesses looking for workforce”.

“On the jobs portal that we announced yesterday, 4294 employers have registered so far and have posted 1,00,903 vacancies. 1,89,879 job seekers have applied. I am so glad that so many employers are coming forward. I really hope many people get jobs thro this initiative,” Kejriwal tweeted on Tuesday.

On July 27, the Delhi Hight Court had asked the Kejriwal government why it was going with the Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT), which has a high rate of false negative results, as the primary test for Covid-19 infection.

The court directed the Delhi government to “strictly” follow the guidelines on Covid-19 testing as issued by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and not according to its own interpretation.

The chief minister has maintained that the Covid-19 situation in Delhi has been improving. For now, the national capital has reported nearly 11,000 active cases of Covid-19 while over one lakh patients have recovered or been discharged from hospitals. Delhi’s Covid-19 death toll stands at 3,881