Screening of every house in Delhi containment zones starts Saturday

As coronavirus COVID-19 cases continued to spiral in the national capital, the screening in every house of the containment zones in Delhi will start from Saturday (June 27). According to the new COVID-19 Response Plan of the Delhi government, the screening will get completed by June 30 and results will be released by July 10.

Nearly 1,100 teams comprising two members each have been formed to conduct the mega exercise. This is the biggest practice of coronavirus screening in the national capital.

A Delhi government's revenue department official told news agency PTI that around 100 teams have been formed in every district and each team has accredited social health activists (ASHA) and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM) as its members. According to the 2011 Census, there were over 34.35 lakh households in the national capital, including 33.56 lakh in urban areas and 79,574 in rural areas.

The teams are armed with a mobile application which will send real-time details to a dedicated web portal set up by the government. Apart from basic details like name, age, address and contact number, the teams are feeding the mobile application with information such as every individual's travel history, whether or not they use the Centre's Aarogya Setu app and if they have symptoms of influenza.

Another official told PTI that this is a trust-based exercise, adding, "We cannot force somebody to undergo the test. We only update the information based on the answers to our questionnaire and conduct the rapid antigen test on those who have COVID-19-like symptoms."

In the last 24 hours, Delhi recorded 3460 new cases, 2326 recoveries and 63 deaths. The total cases so far reached 77240, total recoveries at 47091 and deaths at 2492. The total number of active cases are 27,657 and patients in home isolation are 16249. In the last 24 hours, 21114 tests were done in the national capital, the maximum single day test so far. Till June 26, 459156 tests have been done in Delhi.

In Delhi, 16249 people are undergoing treatment in home isolation. According to the health bulletin, out of 13411 beds in COVID-19 hospitals, 7190 are vacant and 6221 patients are admitted. The recovery rate reached 60 per cent and positive cases were around 17 per cent.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said his government will set up ICU beds on a large scale, but asserted that the COVID-19 situation in the city was still under control.