Amid the rising number of Covid-19 cases in schools after the resumption of all classes from August 2, Punjab Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Wednesday directed the departments concerned to ramp up testing and conduct at least 10,000 RT-PCR tests in schools daily.
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The Deputy Commissioners (DCs) of all Punjab districts have been directed to ensure that only fully vaccinated teaching and non-teaching staff is allowed to attend schools.
It has been ordered to achieve a target of 40,000 samples per day and testing should be further increased if Covid cases mount further.
At a review meeting, the Chief Secretary expressed concern over the movement of people to Punjab from neighbouring states, where the cases have once again increased, and asked officials to keep a tab on the positivity rate ahead of the festival season.
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She said, "Epidemiologists have been appointed in all districts and efforts should be made to thwart a possible third Covid wave."
The Chief Secretary, however, expressed satisfaction over the fact that 2,45,823 samples had been taken in the past week from August 3 to 9, and only 352 came as positive, which accounted for a positivity rate of 0.1 per cent.
She, however, stressed the need to further ramp up the existing health infrastructure in the state. The Chief Secretary was apprised that at present, 4,307 level-2 beds were available in government hospitals, which would be increased to 5,387 after adding 25 per cent capacity, while 6,565 level-2 beds were existing in private facilities, where 1,644 more beds would be added to increase the capacity by 25 per cent.
Asking the officials to focus on increasing medical oxygen availability further in the government and private hospitals, Vini Mahajan directed to make operational all PSA plants within this month, besides further augmenting oxygen concentrator capacity to meet the demand for life-saving gas in future.
-PTC News with inputs from ANI
