NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has come up with an eight-point ‘Revised Delhi Covid Response Plan’ to check the spread of the virus not only in containment zones but the city as a whole.
As per the revised plan, the order issued by the Director-General Health Services, under the state government, on June 22, suggested for complete house-to-house screening in containment zones by June 30 and for the rest of Delhi by July 6.
The plan also includes conducting sero-survey of 20,000 people across districts starting from June 27 whose results will be published on July 10. "Going per the order, every house has to be screened. There is no alternative. There is, of course, limited manpower and it’s not going to be an easy task. Plus, the plan has a time period in which the surveillance needs to be completed, but it will be difficult to achieve the set target in the time frame," said a district masgistrate.
The revised plan also stated that all symptomatic contacts and asymptomatic high-risk contacts are to be tested between the fifth and the tenth day of contact as per the latest guidelines. According to the plan, active case search will be carried out by teams in containment zones and vigorous contact tracing of COVID-19 patients will also be undertaken to analyse the reasons for clustering.
The revised plan also stated that the containment zones will be redefined in line with the guidelines of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). According to the revised plan, the review and redesigning of containment zones will be done by June 26.
The plan also mentioned that highly suspected cases testing negative on Rapid Antigen Test should be examined again using the RT-PCR test. The Delhi government officials when contacted, however, did not provide any clarity over the new plan.
RT-PCR test if needed
The new plan mentioned that highly suspected cases testing negative on Rapid Antigen Test should be examined again using the RT-PCR test.