GURUGRAM: In view of a recent surge in
Covid-19 cases, the
NITI Aayog on Friday directed the
Haryana government to increase its bed capacity, especially those in ICUs, after
Diwali. It also asked the state to strengthen homecare facilities, increase testing and enforce quarantine of patients’ known contacts.
More than 98% of Covid patients in Haryana are under home isolation. The NITI Aayog said efforts should be made to ensure that these patients do not turn critical suddenly. For this, it added, monitoring is important and medical teams should speak to the patients daily.
Moreover, in many cases, family members of patients in home isolation have also tested positive later. Therefore, it is critical to enforce their quarantine as well to help curb the spread of the virus, said the panel.
The NITI Aayog also directed the health department to enforce containment zones and strict isolation of confirmed cases. The department will constitute teams to keep a tab on all patients and ensure they are not stepping out of their homes.
“We will increase our dedicated bed capacity for Covid patients immediately after Diwali. We will focus on targeted sampling and go for micro-containment planning,” said Gurugram chief medical officer Virender Yadav.
On Friday, Gurugram reported 797 fresh Covid cases, taking its tally to 36,879. The district’s positivity rate currently stands at around 15%. The health department said 685 people also recovered on the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 31,910. The district now has 6,219 active cases, and 5,801 of these patients are in home isolation. Three people also succumbed to the infection in the past 24 hours. So far, 239 people have died of Covid-19 in the city, of whom 184 had comorbidities.
Meanwhile, 46 people were sent to institutional quarantine facilities on Friday. So far, 4,05,926 people have been put under surveillance in the district.
In the past 24 hours, the health authorities collected 4,069 samples for antigen and RT-PCR tests. Till now, 4,02610 samples have been sent for testing, out of which 3,60,173 returned negative while the results of 1,811 are awaited.