The Chief Secretary of the state Somesh Kumar today held a video conference with District Collectors and senior officers to review measures for the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
In the video conference that lasted over two hours, the Chief Secretary issued numerous instructions covering the entire scope of COVID management including testing, tracing, treating, vaccination, and enforcement of COVID appropriate behavior.
ALSO READ: Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar was tested positive for covid-19
The Collectors were asked to double COVID testing. The Chief Secretary also directed Collectors to steeply increase and double the number of tests being done on a daily basis in order to cast the net wider and identify as many COVID positive persons as possible. He stated that this would help in the early identification and isolation of positive cases which would be in turn help in controlling the spread of the disease. Early identification would also enable the early start of treatment which would reduce the probability of cases becoming serious, he said
The Collectors were told to see to it that the pace of testing does not come down on weekends and holidays and that all testing centers must work on all days of the week. He asked the Collectors to ensure the use of the new testing app for meticulous contact tracing of every positive person and their subsequent testing also. In line with ICMR’s Testing Guidelines version 6 dated 4th September 2020, the Collectors were asked to ensure that all symptomatic persons found negative in Rapid Antigen Tests were subjected to RTPCR tests also. The Chief Secretary stressed the importance of on-the-spot assessment and counseling of all the COVID positive persons by doctors at the testing location itself. He also emphasized the need to hand over a kit of essential medicines to all persons found fit for home isolation.
The Chief Secretary directed Collectors to ramp up the pace of COVID vaccinations. With relaxation to vaccinate all persons above the age of 45 years irrespective of comorbidity, Government Covid Vaccination Centres (GCVCs) have been opened down to the PHC level increases the number of GCVCs from 142 to over one thousand. He asked Collectors to see to it that people were made aware of the locations of the GCVCs. Furthermore, Chief Secretary fixed minimum performance benchmarks for all GCVCs with a minimum of 100 for PHCs, 200 for Area Hospitals/Community Health Centres, and 300 for District Hospitals/Government General Hospitals so as to ensure that daily vaccinations in GCVCs across the states exceed 1.25 lakh a day from the present figure of 50,000.
ALSO READ: Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar was tested positive for covid-19
Besides District Collectors, Additional Collectors and ACs (LB), DMHOs, Superintendents of District HQ hospitals, DRDOs, CEOs ZP, and DPOs participated in the videoconference from the districts,
Secretary Health and Family Welfare Rizvi, Secretary SC Development Rahul Bojja, Special Secretary Finance Ronald Rose, Director Drugs Control Administration Dr. Preeti Meena, Director Public Health Dr. Srinivas Rao, and other officials were present.
SOURCE-NSS
