Door To Door Samples, Drive Through Testing: A Look At How Delhi Is Taking On The Fight Against Covid-19

After a spike in coronavirus cases in the city, Delhi has now become the second-worst affected state in the country. Here is how Delhi is preparing to boost its battle against the infection.

Photo: PTI

New Delhi: There has been a steep rise in the cases of coronavirus in the capital city. From being the fourth worst affected state, it suddenly shot up to the number second position with a total of 73,780.  With this sudden spurt of cases, there is pressure on the state government to curb the spread of the virus in the city. Various measures are being undertaken to control the spread such as increased testing from 5,000 tests per day to around 18,000 per day. Here are some of the steps being taken to control the infection in Delhi Serological survey On June 21 in a high-level meeting, the Delhi and Central governments decided to conduct a serosurvey to assess the Covid 19 situation in the city. In a serosurvey, blood samples of people are collected to test for the presence of antibodies specific to a pathogen. In this case, it is meant to test for IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 that normally appear 14 days after the infection and continue to be present in the blood serum for months. From June 27, Saturday the survey will begin. According to the Home Ministry, it will cover entire Delhi and around 20,000 people will be tested. This survey is a surveillance measure to understand how the infection is evolving in a particular area. Door To door screening The Delhi Government on June 24 announced that every house will be screened by July 6. According to a report by PTI teams of accredited social health activists (ASHA) and auxiliary nurse midwives(ANM) started the government project from June 25. The report says that Apart from basic details like name, age, address and contact, the teams are feeding the ''SS Corona'' app with information such as every individual''s travel history, whether or not they use the Aarogya Setu app, and if they have symptoms of flu. Drive Through testing centres A report by ANI says that private labs in the city have also ramped up their testing facilities and are using ‘drive-through’ sample collection centres. The report says a 20-minute time slot is given to each vehicle but the tests itself take about 6-7 minutes. Private labs such as Dr Dangs lab have set up three such facilities across the city Oximetre for patients in Home isolation TiheDelhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also announced that Covid 19 patients in Home isolation will be provided with pulse oximeters so that they keep track of their oxygen levels. The device determines the oxygen saturation level in your body which is an indication of the percentage of haemoglobin carrying oxygen in the body. The minister said that once the patient has recovered the device can be returned to the government.