COVID-19 fight: Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla reviews strategy

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Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on April 20 along with Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary, chaired a high-level meeting to review and discuss the COVID-19 status and the response strategy with Chief Secretaries of all the Union Territories of India. The meeting was also attended by Dr VK Paul, Member (Health) NITI Aayog, Dr Balram Bhargava, Secretary, DHR & DG ICMR.

Bhalla pointed out the steep growth in number of cases all across the country.

In the meeting, the current trajectory of total new COVID cases, weekly tests, weekly Positivity Rate, weekly new COVID cases, weekly number of deaths and status/proportion of RT-PCR tests and Rapid Antigen Test in all Union Territories were presented.

The UTs shared their present efforts for containment and management of the positive cases. Ladakh, J&K, and Lakshadweep pointed to the rise in cases due to large number of inbound travelers. Lakshadweep has seen a sudden spike after 14th April, 2021 primarily due to travel of large number of people to mainland to shop for the recent festive occasions. Most UTs have imposed movement restrictions, including night curfew, restriction of intra-island movement in the island UTs. Chandigarh informed that they are conducting door to door counselling for increasing vaccination. 90% of the patients are in home isolation who are being monitored by mobile teams.

Shortage of beds

UT of Delhi discussed shortage of beds and the present efforts to augment this through Central Government infrastructure and support through the DRDO’s recently operationalised COVID Hospital. Delhi Government expressed gratitude for the timely support of Union Government for augmenting their hospital beds capacity, during last year and this year. Their efforts to ramp up testing and reduce the turnaround time for the test results were also outlined.

After a detailed discussion of various issues of COVID management, the Union Home Secretary urged constant vigilance regarding the evolving situation of COVID in the UTs. Strict enforcement of COVID appropriate behavior was stressed along with stricter enforcement of movement restrictions and prohibition of large gatherings, regulated timings for markets etc. He advised the UTs to increase RT-PCR testing along with use of RAT for screening in clusters. Urgent review of clinical management was strongly recommended along with ramping up testing and hospital infrastructure.

Grim Scenario

Expressing concern over the scenario, Dr Paul pointed out the criticality of next three weeks for COVID response measures. The UT administrators were advised to plan in advance for three weeks. A survey to promptly identify the COVID positive people should be taken up, he stated. He stressed on planning the minutest details of COVID management. For UT of Ladakh, he recommended regulation of the incoming labourers and supervised containment.  Islands can be made large containment zones, he suggested.