NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev on Monday directed officials to implement all directions of the Ministry of Home Affairs, including re-mapping of containment zones and aggressive contact-tracing, to effectively fight the COVID-19 pandemic in the national capital.
Sources said that in his directions to Principal Secretary (Health) Vikram Dev Dutt and Divisional Commissioner Sanjeev Khirwar, the chief secretary also asked them to ensure enhanced testing and patient-friendly medical care.
These directions come a day after a high-level committee set up by Union Home Minister Amit Shah recommended quarantine of contacts of all COVID-19 positive cases in Delhi and re-mapping of all containment zones to check the rapid spread of the coronavirus infection in the national capital.
"The chief secretary has issued directions to the principal secretary (Health) and the divisional commissioner to scrupulously implement all the directions of MHA to aggressively fight COVID-19, including enhanced surveillance, re-mapping of containment zones, enhanced testing, aggressive tracking and patient-friendly medical care," a source said on Monday.
The committee had recommended that containment zones be drawn afresh and strict vigil and control be maintained on their borders and activities inside them, the home ministry had said in a statement.
It had also suggested that contact-tracing be done for all infected people and once identified, such contacts should be quarantined.
The Aarogya Setu and Itihaas apps should be jointly used to accomplish this task, it had said.
The Union home minister had advised the Delhi government to implement the containment strategy recommended by the V K Paul Committee.
Shah had asked Delhi government authorities to take technical help for drawing the new or amended limits for containment zones in Delhi.
Delhi recorded 2,909 fresh coronavirus cases on Monday, taking the tally in the city to over 62,000-mark, while the death toll from the disease climbed to 2,233, authorities said.
A total of 3,000 or more fresh cases were reported per day in the national capital in the last three days.
Fifty-eight fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours, the Delhi health department bulletin said on Monday.
The death toll from COVID-19 stood at 2,175 on Sunday.
The bulletin said, the death toll from coronavirus infection has risen to 2,233, and the total number of cases mounted to 62,655.