The actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19
Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan in the media briefing on COVID-19 made several statements to improve the COVID-19 situation thriughout the country with major renewed focus on "Test, Track, Treat, Vaccinate". In his brief presentation at the conference, he gave the following focal points:
- Efficient implementation of "Test, Track and Treat" strategy
- Significantly increase testing in all districts. RT PCR tests - a minimum of 70%
- Ensure all close contacts [approx. 30] traced, isolated, tested in 72 hours
- identify clusters, focus on surveillance and stringent implementation of containment zone approach
- Undertaking priority vaccination of identified groups in districts reporting higher cases
He also added that initially when the Covid scare was rising last year, the state governments focused on tracking all the close contacts of the infected person which included his family members, his colleagues, his milkman, his friends and all other persons he came into contact with. However, with time, this contracted to just tracking down of the family members of the positive patient. Hence, with the surge in cases, we must go back to tracking approximately 30 people the patient came into contact with.
Bhushan also added that the district with most cases must be taken into vaccination priority group as per the government's orders.
Test, Track, Treat, Vaccinate पर ध्यान केंद्रित किया जा रहा है। सभी राज्यों से इसका पालन करने का अनुरोध किया गया है, ताकि स्थिति को नियंत्रण में रखा जा सके।@MoHFW_INDIA @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/YNExE9OLb9
— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) March 17, 2021
