COVID-19: Delhi govt's revised containment strategy to be announced soon, officials say

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is working on revising its containment strategy and is likely to conduct a survey in the high-coronavirus incidence areas of the city, officials said on Monday, a day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met Union Home Minister Amit Shah for a review of the COVID-19 situation in the capital.

A top official of the Delhi government said a revised plan of the containment strategy is expected to be finalised after discussions in the coming days.

With Delhi witnessing a fresh spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, the Centre on Sunday announced a slew of steps, including making available 300 additional ICU beds, doubling the number of daily PCR tests and a house-to-house survey in the national capital.

The announcement came after an emergency meeting attended by Shah and Kejriwal.

The home minister emphasised that the entire set of containment measures instituted earlier should be reviewed continuously, so that there are no gaps in implementation.

"The Delhi government is discussing on revising the containment strategy, a plan of which is likely to be announced in a day or two," the official said.

There has been a significant rise in the number of containment zones in Delhi since the sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in the city.

On November 1, the number of containment zones was 3,359, which rose to 4,358 by November 15.

Officials said a door-to-door survey is likely to be launched soon in areas that reported a high number of COVID-19 cases.

"The survey will identify suspected COVID-19 patients in high-risk areas and groups to test and isolate them if they test positive for the disease," the official said.

Kejriwal had said after the meeting that the current number of around 60,000 daily COVID-19 tests will be increased to over a lakh.

The Centre will help the Delhi government in scaling up the testing capacity, he had said.

The current testing level is to be doubled through a renewed focus on the door-to-door survey and aggressive contract-tracing, officials said.

The survey will be conducted by teams of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the city government and the municipal corporations of Delhi, and all the symptomatic persons found in the survey would be tested and provided the necessary treatment, officials had said on Sunday.

The chief minister had also said around 750 ICU beds will be arranged at the DRDO centre by the Centre and the required machines will be provided by it to help the Delhi government increase the number of ICU beds at its facilities.