Timely hospitalisation, more tests in NCR plan
NEWDELHI: Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi should coordinate their response to the Covid-19 outbreak by focussing on timely hospital access and using available tools for contact tracing, Union home minister Amit Shah advised its chief ministers on Thursday, stepping up efforts to contain the epidemic in the National Capital Region (NCR).
The matter was discussed at a meeting called by Shah to form a unified strategy in region that is home to close to 30 million people and has some of the country’s biggest industrial clusters, but is splintered into several cities and towns with distinct administrative structures.
Together, the four key cities – Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad -- account for over 100,000 infections till now, with the Capital alone recording close to 90% of it. Delhi, however, also has close to 67% of the NCR population and the highest per capita testing in the country, which means it is likely to detect more of the outbreak.
The states must focus on saving lives by ensuring Covid-19 infected people who need to get to a hospital are able to do so on time, and that the administrations use platforms such as Aarogya Setu and ITIHAAS, the home minister told the three CMs: Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar and Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath.
Separately, the Union minister suggested that UP and Haryana ramp up tests using rapid antigen kits “to help reduce infection transmission rate”, a statement by a spokesperson quoted Shah as telling these leaders.
These kits can be provided by the Union government to UP and Haryana, the minister added, according to tweets by a home ministry spokesperson.
Aarogya Setu logs close contacts and location histories of people using smartphones, ITIHAAS is a location tracking system based on mobile network data – this can identify people who have basic phones as well.
NEWDELHI: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal opened on Thursday the country’s first plasma bank at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj. The bank has been set up to pool in plasma from people who recovered from Covid-19 so that moderately ill patients can have better access to therapy using it.
The CM laid out the criteria for donors and said the plan will be a success only if people who have recovered from Covid-19 turn up in big numbers to donate plasma.