The State-constituted Field Inspection Team headed by IAS officers E. Saravanavelraj and R. Gajalakshmi has asked the Coimbatore Corporation to collect more number of swabs for COVID-19 test, sources who attended Monday’s meeting with the team said.
The Corporation now lifts 100-150 samples a day, mostly from containment zones. The team wanted it increased to 200-250 a day. Of the samples lifted from the zones, it wanted 75% to be from people who could be secondary contacts and 25% to be random samples. Thus far, the Corporation had lifted 2,280 swabs samples from people across the city.
It also wanted the Corporation to continue taking random samples from field staff – police, conservancy workers, paramedical staff, journalists and other groups who worked during the lockdown period.
The team also wanted the Corporation to put in place a mechanism to test the staff at the 12 budget canteens (Amma Unavagam). The civic body had decided to test the workers at the canteens instead of asking them to assemble at a place. The team also suggested that the containment zones be restricted to the vicinity of houses where positive cases were reported, to make the lifting of samples more representative. The sources also said the team had asked the Corporation to ensure the availability of essential commodities and devise a plan for every two days and not a week, as it did now, to make it dynamic and reflect the ground situation.