In a bid to identify the infected people and curb the spread of the virus, governments of Gurgaon and Faridabad have followed the path of Noida and started random testing of commuters from Delhi. People entering the two cities’ premises from Delhi have to now go through voluntary testing regimes as the national capital is witnessing its worst-ever numbers of covid-19 cases every day.
According to the administrations of Gurgaon, the measure of testing commuters at the Gurgaon-Delhi border will help them in identifying localities that are affected the most. With the employment of the exercise, the city has found 3 positive cases out of the 400 people they tested.
NDTV reported the Chief Medical Officer of Gurgaon, Dr. Virender Yadav, saying that they have built 6 camps exclusively for the random testing at the border areas of the city.
Speaking about the voluntary participation in the sampling, he said that “no one is being forced”. He added that people around malls, markets, including bus conductors and drivers, are being tested as the aim is to find covid-19 positive people at the earliest to avoid further spread.
Noida had initially started this method, beginning Wednesday when they tested random people coming from the national capital and approaching the Delhi-Noida border. The measure was taken up following the spike in the infections in Delhi that have left people dreaded for their lives.
According to officials, the rate of positive cases amongst the people tested randomly at Gautam Buddh Nagar’s border area of Delhi was higher than any other non-border area within Noida in its Thursday data charts.
The national capital has been crippling under the high rate of positive cases in the city. Delhi has passed the 5 lakh mark now and records over a hundred fatalities every day. Apart from this, the city is already breaking down due to the super high air pollution levels, which is fearfully one of the major trigger factors of covid-19 and makes the disease deadlier than it presently is.
Within this week alone, fines quadrupled to Rs.2000 as 2 crore locals did not wear masks, thrashed social distancing rules and spat in public places, all this during times when the city is deficient of enough hospital beds.
To create healthcare facilities to more incoming patients, the CM Arvind Kejriwal has announced 1,400 new ICU beds for hospitals while also requesting the Centre to close market places that have become hotspots for new cases.
Though the country has been registering a lesser number of cases since October, the news isn’t good enough as 45,000 infections are still being recorded each day on an average from across the nation.
Many believe that the drop in testing and home-treatment without informing the government tallies about their infection is also one of the reasons for the low count.
However, the Union said on Saturday that India has crossed the 13 crore milestone in the testing arena with the last crore tests being done in the past 10 days only. It further said that the cumulative positivity rate has also declined and is staying on the downward course.
