Central govt announces two week serological survey in New Delhi to redraw COVID strategy

Central government, on Sunday, announced that it will be conducting a serological survey in New Delhi for a two week period between June 27 and July 10 wherein more than 20,000 people will be tested COVID-19. The decision was taken after a meeting chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah that discussed Dr Paul's Committee Report on Containment Strategy on COVID-19 in Delhi.

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Action plan

The survey is set to help the government to revise its strategy to fight the virus in the national capital, which has seen a massive surge in the number of cases over the last few weeks.

"Major points of containment Strategy set by Dr Paul are—Renewed delimitation of Containment Zones, strict monitoring and control over the limits, activities within them, Contact Tracing of all infected persons and Quarantining of Contacts, including use of Arogya Setu App, Each house outside containment zones should be listed and monitored, through which Delhi can get complete information and COVID positive cases to be kept in a hospital, COVID Care Center or Home isolation. COVID Care Centers to be run properly with the help of voluntary organizations/NGOs," MHA said in an official release. 

MHA further said that each district of Delhi will be connected to a large hospital. It had asked the Delhi government to fix a plan by June 22, form district level teams by June 23, revise delimitation of container zones by June 26, and survey containment zones by June 30.

The Central government has also written to all states and Union Territories to ensure the strict implementation of guidelines on home isolation at the field level. Mentioning that certain states are allowing home isolation as a routine practice, Lav Aggarwal - the Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, cautioned that this might lead to the spread of disease among family members and neighbours, especially in dense urban conglomerations. According to him, the policy of test, trace, track, and isolate may not be feasible if the guidelines are not implemented in letter and spirit. 

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Recovery rate improving

On Sunday, the Union Health Ministry stated that recovery rate has increased further to 55.49 per cent with over 2,27,755 COVID-19 patients cured so far. The Ministry further added that concerted efforts were being made to expand lab and testing infrastructure and that the total number of government labs had increased to 722 and private labs had increased to 259. 

"The number of patients recovering from COVID-19 continues to increase. So far, a total of 2,27,755 patients have been cured. During the last 24 hours, a total of 13,925 COVID-19 patients have been cured. The recovery rate has further improved to 55.49 per cent amongst COVID-19 patients," the Ministry said in a statement.

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