The Covid-19 positivity rate recorded in the last 24 hours is 1.46 per cent. Express Photo: Praveen KhannaGhaziabad administration will track cab drivers taking Covid patients to hospitals as part of contact tracing, district officials have said.
According to the administration, those assisting the patient’s travel to hospitals and their admissions will also be included in the ambit of contact tracing to track infections. Ghaziabad reported 255 cases on Friday, an increase from the 150-170 figure in the last few weeks.
“We found that there is no record of those bringing Covid patients from home isolation to hospitals. There is no data about how many people came into contact with those patients, especially drivers. It will be necessary to provide information of all such people and the surveillance teams will carry out due procedures like conducting antigen or RT-PCR tests of those persons,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, DM Ghaziabad.
According to officials, hospitals will maintain contact details of drivers and the registration number of their vehicles. It will be mandatory for patients to provide information of those who accompanied them to the hospital, said officials. The hospitals will then provide the information to Covid control rooms which will coordinate tests.
Further, the administration has directed local radiology labs to provide information on patients coming for CT scans. “It has also been found that several patients were diagnosed negative in Covid tests but during CT scan, presence of the virus was found. Since there is no compiled data of those getting the tests done, labs have been directed to provide details of those coming in for surveillance,” said Pandey.
In view of rising cases in NCR, the Ghaziabad administration has directed private hospitals to reserve 20% beds for the state administration in the event of emergency admissions. Currently, there are 1,476 beds in both L2 and L3 hospitals for symptomatic patients requiring oxygen and ICU treatments. There are currently 145 ICU beds with 95 ventilators for patients with severe conditions.