Nagpur: Amid lowering of guard by civic health teams and citizens alike, municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B on Thursday ordered aggressive tracing and Covid testing of close contacts of positive persons.
After gradual dip in daily new Covid cases, the numbers have rapidly began to spiral in the last one week and even touched 500-mark on Thursday, first time after December 5. Number of daily tests, which had been ranging between 2,500 and 3,500 for the last two months, too increased to 5,085.
Alarmed over the spike in Covid cases, the civic chief held a damage control meeting with additional municipal commissioners Jalaj Sharma, Ram Joshi, and Sanjay Nipane, chief medical officer Sanjay Chilkar, Dr Narendra Bahirwar, and Dr Tikesh Bisen at the corona war room.
The rapid response teams had stopped contact tracing because of the fall in cases, though no orders to that effect were issued, said officials.
In the evening, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) decided to increase contact tracing and Covid testing in general. However, targeted testing would be done for those coming in contact with more people. This group includes household maids, milkmen, vegetable sellers, cooks and food stall owners, security guards, shopkeepers etc.
Earlier in the day, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray too had called for increased testing. Central government team had observed that far less testing was being done daily in Maharashtra as compared to Delhi having a population of over 2 crore, officials said.
The NMC would also facilitate rapid antigen test (RAT) at all its 55 centres across the city. Those testing negative in antigen test will have to take RT-PCR at the same centre, in case they have symptoms.
The civic chief also appealed to private hospitals to not to refer serious Covid patients to Indira Gandhi Government Medical College & Hospital (IGGMCH) or Government Medical College & Hospital (GMCH), but try and save their life at their establishment only. Radhakrishnan said citizens must be Covid warriors themselves and use mask, maintain distancing, hand hygiene, and elderly people must avoid going out.
The civic chief also called up police commissioner Amitesh Kumar to discuss casual approach of citizens towards Covid norms. He requested the CP to initiate action against people who violate distancing norms, and do not use mask. Radhakrishnan also told Kumar that following unlocking of movement control restrictions, citizens have become careless, resulting in spike in Covid cases.
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55 centres | All primary health centres, civic health posts, mobile vans in each zone, Mahal diagnostics centre, Badkas Chowk, Dattatreya Nagar NMC school (in place of Ravi Bhavan), Narendra Nagar Samaj Bhavan (in place of Morris College), Central Railway Community Hall, NMC hospitals at Gandhi Nagar, Isolation Hospital at Imambaba