Testing, vaccination, focus on rural areas: Gurgaon takes steps to curb Covid-19

Vaccination, testing and an increased focus on rural areas – these are the measures being adopted by the Gurgaon administration and health department to combat Covid-19 in the district. This was revealed by Deputy Commissioner Yash Garg Thursday during a video conference Prime Minister Narendra Modi held with Deputy Commissioners of 54 districts in 10 states to discuss the situation.

According to officials, apart from Gurgaon, five more Haryana districts were included in the meeting – Sonipat, Panipat, Faridabad, Karnal, and Hisar. The other states from which districts were included were Maharashtra, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Jharkhand and Puducherry.

Presenting his report, Garg told the Prime Minister that the Covid situation in Gurgaon is being monitored by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. “As part of measures to control the spread, vaccination is being emphasised in the district. Until now, over 6 lakh doses have been administered, which covers around 30 per cent of the population,” said Garg.

“We are also focusing on testing to identify infected persons. So far, more than 14 lakh tests have been conducted in the district, which is among the highest in the country,” he said.

The Deputy Commissioner stated during the meeting that the administration is also focusing on identifying Covid positive persons in villages with two teams — which include ASHA workers, teachers, sarpanches or other influential persons — being sent door-to-door in every village to conduct a health checkup of residents.

“More than 6,000 people have been tested as part of this initiative in Gurgaon so far, of whom 44 have tested positive. The target is to cover the entire rural area in the next five days,” said Garg, adding that the administration has also set up 164 isolation centers in villages to segregate infected persons.

Since mid-March, Gurgaon has seen a rise in Covid cases, with the daily spike peaking on April 29 when 5,042 new cases had emerged. In the last two weeks the situation has seen an improvement, with a drop in daily cases. Active case count also dropped below 15,000 for the first time in a month on Thursday.

Garg acknowledged this during Thursday’s meeting, pointing out that the district’s positivity rate, which was 33 per cent at one point, has now fallen to “10 to 12 per cent”.

Throughout this week, Gurgaon has been recording less than 1,500 new Covid cases every day. On Thursday, 1,091 persons tested positive while eight persons died. At present, Gurgaon has 13,624 active Covid cases, of which 11,338 are in home isolation.