THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: To prevent another wave of the pandemic post local body elections, the district health authorities have ramped up testing in the district along with aggressive training sessions for polling officers to equip them to enforce prevention protocols.According to officials, the number of tests in the district has increased to 8,000 from 5,000.A senior district health officer said that increasing tests is one way to keep the Covid-19 spread under control.
“We are anticipating another wave after the poll though Covid-19 cases are declining in the district,” said the official. The authorities have deployed 15 mobile labs for the purpose. “We have deployed more resources and the mobile teams have been on duty everyday since last week. We need to step up surveillance which will prompt people to voluntarily come forward for testing,” said the official. Meanwhile, directions have been given to all health centres to increase the number of tests.
There are 3,281 polling stations in the district of which 2,467 stations are in grama panchayat, block panchayat and district panchayat wards. An average of five polling officers will be deployed at each station. “Tests will be conducted everyday excluding Wednesday that are assigned for immunisation drives,” the official added.
Health authorities are pinning hopes on the officers in charge at the polling station to keep the situation under control. On Saturday, the health authorities organised the first session of Training of Trainers (ToT) for polling officers in the district.“More training sessions will be held in the coming days. There shouldn’t be any laxity from the part of the polling officers. Only they can help prevent another wave of the pandemic in the district,” the official added.