Demonstrating the Modi Government’s commitment to providing relief to the people of Delhi, the Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah has been personally monitoring the COVID-19 situation in Delhi, on the advice of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. As per directions given by the Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah in a series of meetings chaired by him over the last few days in regard to the Covid-19 situation in Delhi, house-to-house health survey in 242 containment zones of Delhi has been completed yesterday. A total of 2.3 lakh people were surveyed.

Further, on directions of the Union Home Minister to increase testing capacity & quick delivery of results in Delhi, testing via Rapid Antigen testing methodology was started yesterday. A total of 7,040 people have been tested in 193 testing Centres. Testing will continue with increased numbers in coming days.

Sample testing has been doubled immediately following decisions taken by Shri Amit Shah. A total of 27,263 testing samples have been collected in Delhi from 15th to 17th June 2020 against the daily collection which varied between 4,000-4,500 earlier.

To provide relief to the common man in Delhi, the Home Minister Shri Amit Shah constituted a committee under Dr. VK Paul, Member, Niti Aayog to fix rates charged by private hospitals in Delhi for 60 percent beds for COVID-19 patients in various categories, therefore; isolation beds, ICUs without ventilator support & ICUs with ventilator support.

New Rate list for Covid-19 treatment in Delhi’s private hospitals

 Category

Private Hospitals                                New Rates (per day)                                            Old Rates (per day)

Isolation beds                                           Rs 8000 – 10000                                                   Rs 24000 - 25000

ICUs without ventilator                         Rs 13000 – 15000                                                 Rs 34000 - 43000

ICUs with ventilator                              Rs 15000 – 18000                                                    Rs 44000 - 54000

 The Committee has recommended a range from Rs 8,000-10,000 per day (including PPE and medicines), 13,000-15,000 per day (including PPE and medicines) & 15,000-18,000 per day (including PPE and medicines) for Isolation beds, ICUs without ventilators and ICUs with ventilators respectively for all private hospitals (depending on whether the private hospital is NABH accredited or not). This is as compared to the current charges ranging from Rs 24,000-25,000 per day (excluding PPE), 34,000-43,000 per day (excluding PPE) & 44,000-54,000 per day (excluding PPE.

Meanwhile, Centre has lauded the best practice from Karnataka for COVID-19 management which includes the comprehensive contact tracing of COVID-19 positive cases and physical/phone-based household survey which has covered more than 1.5 crore households. The two initiatives taken by the State Government are developed as part of the ‘Whole of Government’ approach with the involvement of multi-sectoral agencies and supported by technology-based solutions and interventions. They effectively trace and track each case thereby successfully containing the spread of the epidemic.

The Centre has asked the other States to adapt these best practices to their local context and replicate them for better management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contact tracing is a critical component to contain the epidemic and ensure that the health infrastructure does not get overwhelmed. Karnataka has widened the definition of ‘Contact’ to include both the high risk as well as low-risk contacts as defined by the Government of India. The number of primary and secondary contacts in Karnataka were meticulously traced and put under strict quarantine.

More than 10,000 well-trained field staff carry out specific responsibilities for contact tracing as per the detail SOP designed by the State which prescribes step-by-step actions to be performed by each designated person. The Contact Tracing Mobile App and Web Application are being used to overcome the huge quantum of work, genuine forgetfulness of the positive persons and attempts to hide facts due to various reasons.