BENGALURU: To encourage Covid-recovered patients to donate plasma and save lives, Rs 5,000 will be given to each donor as a mark of appreciation, said Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Wednesday.“In all, 8,154 booth-level committees will be set up in a day or two to conduct a house-to-house survey to identify and refer ILI and SARI cases to hospitals, certify people for home isolation and encourage reverse isolation for those above 60. The survey teams will track primary and secondary contacts of the infected persons, carry pulse oximeters and thermal scanners. Each team will cater to at least 400 homes and 1,500 population,” he said.
An ambulance will be stationed at each ward and zonal officers have to supervise all these tasks on a daily basis and take care of labs and testing procedures. RDPR Secretary L K Atheeq will hold meetings on providing training to task force members. No samples should be kept pending for more than a week and senior officer Shalini Rajaneesh will take care of that aspect. Infected persons from slums and other places where there are no facilities for home isolation should be quarantined in Covid Care Centres, Dr Sudhakar said, adding Dharavi model should be followed.
“Labs must enhance their testing numbers to a minimum of 1,000 samples per day in the next 10-15 days. The state has crossed the 9 lakh tests milestone, and the capacity will be enhanced to 50,000 tests per day,” he said.He held a meeting with 25 private medical colleges that are yet to set up labs and told them to do so after arranging equipment within a week. In the next 15 days, 58 medical colleges will test 25,000 to 30,000 samples every day. Private hospitals and labs together can test another 10,000 samples per day.
3,176 test positive
For the first time, the state crossed the 3,000-mark in new positive cases in a single day, recording 3,176 cases on Wednesday, taking the tally to 47,253. The state also recorded the highest number of Covid deaths for a single day at 87 and the toll stood at 928.Bengaluru Urban was the biggest contributor with 1,975 cases and it also registered 60 deaths. The state also crossed 9 lakh in total samples tested at 9,02,026 and on Wednesday, 22,204 swabs were tested.
Dharwad registered 139 cases, Ballari 136, Mysuru 99, Vijaypura 80, Dakshin Kannada 76, Kalaburgi 67, Udupi 52, Yadgir 49, Uttara Kannada 48, Belgavi 41, Gadag 39, Bidar and Davanagere 35 each, Bagalkot 34, Chikkaballapur 32, Mandya 31, Shivamogga 29, Raichur 26, Hassan 25, Tumakuru 24, Kodagu 23, Kolar 15, Koppal 14, Chikkamagaluru 13, Chitradurga 12, Bengaluru Rural 10, Chamarajanagar 8, Haveri 6 and Ramanagara 3.