The Greater Chennai Corporation is planning to adopt a new strategy to break the Covid-19 chain. They are now focusing on the door-to-door screening, deploying doctors to offer free teleconsultations, supplying free medicine kits to those who take the swab test at testing centres, etc.
Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi on Tuesday said those who come to testing centres of the Corporation and other private laboratories with Covid-19 symptoms like fever, cough or body pain, loss of smell, taste, etc will also be considered as suspect cases and they will be provided with a basic medicine kit. He said people who are awaiting their test results tend to get in contact with other people causing the spread.
Addressing the reporters after holding a consultation with all the monitoring officials, the principal secretary said they are focusing on door-to-door screening for people aged below 60 years. He said basic screening will be done to those residents and the team of officials on whether they would be providing them necessary directives on whether they should be in-home isolation or be referred to Covid Care Centres (CCC).
The civic body had deployed IAS officers as nodal officers in each of the 15 zones to monitor the Covid-19 preventive initiatives. Bedi requested people who are Covid-19 positive and staying in a single room or small living area with other family members to make use of the CCC which currently has only 25 per cent occupancy.
Further, the Corporation is planning to hire 300 final year MBBS students on a contract basis for three months for Covid-19 preventive measures. Some of them will be appointed to offer teleconsultations services to those Covid-19 patients in-home Isolation. These doctors will operate from a control room to be set up in all the 15 zones across the city.
Bedi said the spread of the disease in the second wave is more than the first wave and people should follow the SOP issued by the government.
An official from the civic body said that they have a target of 16,000 medical kits to be supplied to the residents who visit the testing centres. He added that all the Covid Care Centre in the city will soon be equipped with oxygen support to reduce the burden in the tertiary hospitals.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chennai/chennai-corporation-to-adopt-new-strategy-to-break-the-chain-7312275/
