VIJAYAWADA: Within the next four or five days Andhra Pradesh’s coronavirus testing capacity will be doubled to 4,000 tests per day, officials told Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at a review meeting here on Wednesday.
At present, 2,100 tests are being done in the State every day, and this will be scaled up using TrueNat TB testing equipment, the officials said. The Chief Minister told them to first test the 32,000-odd people identified in the family survey. “After this, random tests should be conducted across the State, considering every mandal as a unit,’’ Jagan said.
As for those in quarantine, officials told Jagan `500 is being spent on each person every day for their food, bed and blanket. Similarly, `50 is spent on each person per day for sanitation, and `300 for transport. People in quarantine are provided double or single rooms,” the officials said.
The Chief Minister told them to ensure protective gear is supplied to frontline workers, and prices of essential commodities are not hiked. Other ministers, meanwhile, asserted that there was no shortage of PPE for doctors, saying, “We manufacture 10,000 sets of PPE in the State and order a similar number from outside.”
Rs 2,000 for poor after quarantine
CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy told officials to provide `2,000 to the poor who return home from quarantine centres after completing the medical protocol. “They should be informed about the precautionary measures to be taken after they get home, and tests should be conducted on them every week,” he said