Surveillance, more beds, contact tracing: Gzb readies for a world with Covid

After the relaxed lockdown guidelines were announced on Sunday, state officials issued strict directions with regard to containment zones/hot spots and told the

After the relaxed lockdown guidelines were announced on Sunday, state officials issued strict directions with regard to containment zones/hot spots and told the health and administration officials to beef up surveillance activities. Officials added that for better contact tracing every person in every household will have to download the Aryoga Setu app and training would be given to residents, if needed.

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Restrictions on movement remain if the person is over 65 years of age, officials said.

The officials estimate that stricter measures would be needed once the relaxations comes into play from Monday. Accordingly, the state is also preparing to handle more cases as people start stepping out for work.

The UP chief minister recently directed all districts to increase the capacity of Covid and quarantine facilities. He also told districts to make arrangement of another 15,000-20,000 quarantine beds and 52,000 beds in the Covid L1, L2 and L3 hospitals.

“We have asked two private hospitals (in Ghaziabad) to reserve a part of their wards for Covid-19 beds and hand it over to us or they start functioning as Covid hospitals and charge patients accordingly. At present, the Covid treatment in government facilities is free of cost. There are certain patients who want admission in private hospitals so we are making arrangements,” the CMO said.

The state has 155 L1 category hospitals, 69 L2 and 19 L3 category dedicated Covid hospitals to deal with positive cases.

“The CM has directed that we need to identify bigger facilities where 1,000-1,500 beds can be accommodated. At present, we have a total of about 1,400 quarantine beds. We are also trying to add 200 more beds for isolation/Covid against about 695 available at present,” CMO added.

PEDAL ON CONTACT TRACING

“There has to be contact tracing of every Covid-19 patient, mapping of the case is mandatory and complete compliance is a must. The officials will also have to check the geographical spread of the cases and see where the contacts of the positive patients have spread to,” UP additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi said.

“As per the fresh guidelines, a containment zone will be a 1km radius from epicentre in urban and rural areas, if there are more than one cases. For just one case, containment zone will be 400 metres. So, these areas will range from minimum of 400 metres to 1km. This is for better management of hot spots. Further, every person in every household will have to download the Aryoga Setu app. The officials will check and will also train residents if needed,” Awasthi added.

The officials have also asked for beefing up of door-to-door surveillance in hot spots. They added that if anyone is found suffering from influenza like illness (ILI), flu or severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), the medical teams will conduct tests and take appropriate medical action.

According to officials, the number of Covid-19 active cases in UP stood at 1,838 till Sunday evening while 698 other persons were discharged and 43 deaths taken place so far.