Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has instructed officials to complete the testing of all those who attended the religious congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi and their primary and secondary contacts at the earliest to get a clear picture of the extent of spread of COVID-19. He also ordered that guidelines pertaining to quarantine and isolation should be strictly followed.
Addressing a high-level review meeting on the COVID scourge on Sunday, Mr. Jagan said testing should be expanded on the basis of the data compiled during the household survey so that the scope for new infections could be reduced. He also advised the conduct of random tests and that protocols be adhered to.
Pilot basis
Officials told the Chief Minister that random tests were conducted in Visakhapatnam on a pilot basis, for which the red zones in the city were divided into eight clusters and 20 samples collected from each one of them. All the results were negative.
Mr. Jagan directed the officials to set up isolation wards in all government and private hospitals to do the testing and treat positive cases, and to increase the testing capacity of the laboratories in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and at five other places. He also wanted a lab to be set up in every district headquarters.