Kejri unveils ‘5-T’ plan, Delhi to be first to start ‘random testing’
■ ‘If we stay three steps ahead, we can defeat coronavirus’
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday unveiled a “5-T” action plan to combat coronavirus and said the administration will do one lakh random tests for the deadly disease in the city’s hotspot areas. The fivepoint plan comprises rapid random testing at hotspots, tracing patients, scaling up treatment for upto 30,000 active patients, teamwork with Central and state governments and tracking. Delhi will be the first state in India to plan random testing to detect Covid-19 carriers.
The CM stressed we should learn from other countries on how to tackle the deadly virus and “one should be three steps ahead” of the disease. He said: “The first T is testing. If you don’t test, you won’t be able to find which houses have been affected. It’ll go on spreading. South Korea identified every single individual through large-scale testing.”
The second step was tracing. “We have started taking the help of the police. We gave them the numbers of 27,702 people to find if people under selfquarantine are staying at home. Today we will give them 2,000 phone numbers of people brought out of the Markaz to find if they roamed in the area.”
Mr Kejriwal said if Delhi has 30,000 patients, his government will take over 8,000 hospital beds, 12,000 hotel rooms and 10,000 patients will be put in banquet halls and dharamshalas.
“We need to ensure if the lockdown is lifted in one state, patients from other states don’t go and infect people there. If we stay three steps ahead, we will be able to defeat the coronavirus.”
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, on Tuesday, unveiled a ‘5T’ action plan to combat the novel coronavirus and said that the administration will conduct 1 lakh random tests for the deadly disease in the city’s hotspot areas.
The five-point plan consists of rapid random testing at hotspots, tracing patients, scaling-up treatment for up to 30,000 active patients, teamwork with Central and state governments, and tracking.
Delhi is the first state in the country to go for random testing to detect Covid-19 carriers.
The chief minister stressed that there was an urgent need to learn from other countries on how to tackle the deadly virus and that one should be three steps ahead of the disease. Elaborating on the action plan, he said, “The first ‘T’ is testing. If you don’t test, you won’t be able to find out which houses have been affected. It’ll go on spreading. South Korea identified every single individual through large scale testing. We are now going to do large scale testing like South Korea.”
Mr Kejriwal said that the government has started receiving 50,000 testing kits.
“We have also placed orders for 1,00,000 testing kits. From Friday, we will be equipped to hold rapid tests. Wherever we have hotspots like Markaz (Nizamuddin) and Dilshad Garden, we will hold random tests.”
Mr Kejriwal said that the second step is tracing.
He said, “We have also started taking the help of the police. We have given them the phone numbers of 27,702 people to find out if the people, under selfquarantine, are indeed staying at homes. Today we are going to give 2,000
phone numbers of people who were brought out of Markaz to find out if they roamed in the area. The areas they went out to, will be sealed and monitored.”
The state government has declared Lok Nayak Hospital, GB Pant Hospital, and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital for treatment of Covid-19 patients only.
Mr Kejriwal said 2,950 beds have been kept ready only for coronavirus patients. Of these, 400 beds are in private hospitals — Max (Saket), Apollo, and Ganga Ram.
The chief minister said if Delhi has 30,000 active patients, the government will take over 8,000 beds in hospitals, 12,000 hotel rooms, and 10,000 patients will be in banquets and dharamshalas.
He said, “We have also planned at what stage we will need it. We are also
prepping for ventilators and PPE (personal placement equipment) kits and what are the numbers we will need.”
Mr Kejriwal said it was his responsibility to monitor 24x7 whether the administration was doing its job as assigned to them. He, however, praised both the state and the Central governments for rising above political interests to fight the Covid-19 battle.
He said, “I am happy that all governments — state and Central — and agencies are also working together. We need to ensure team work and learn from other states and their best practices. We need to ensure that if the lockdown is lifted in one state, patients from other states don’t go and infect there. If we stay three steps ahead of coronavirus, we will be able to defeat it.”