Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed officials to provide 52,000 additional isolation beds in dedicated Covid hospitals across the state and start community surveillance by engaging youths to serve people during the pandemic.
Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Awasthi told news persons in Lucknow on Wednesday that the government had asked Medical Health and Medical Education departments to increase beds in three levels of Covid hospitals.
While Medical Health department has been asked to increase 10,000 beds in Level-1 hospitals, 5,000 beds with oxygen in Level-2 hospitals and 2,000 beds with ventilators in Level-3 hospitals, the Medical Education department has been directed to increase of 20,000 beds in Level-1, 10,000 beds in Level-2 and 5,000 beds in Level-3 hospitals.
“The chief minister informed Medical Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh and Medical Education Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna about the decision and asked them to formulate a policy at the earliest,” Awasthi said .
Acting swiftly, the government notified an additional 75 new hospitals attached with Level-1 Covid hospitals by increasing the total isolation beds from 10,000 to 17,194. Similarly, quarantine beds too have increased to 21,569 from 15,000.
On the other hand, Yogi asked officials for starting community surveillance and to engage youths from Nehru Yuva Kendra, NCC, NSS and other outfits to serve the people in hotspots. Besides, women of self-help groups (SHGs) too are also to be engaged in producing face mask and other equipment.
There are around 381 hotspots in 57 districts of the state where lockdown is being strictly enforced.
Awasthi said that the chief minister ordered strict surveillance in hotspots, but also asked authorities of green zone to allow certain activities, like opening of construction material shops and other shops as per guidelines.
There are 13 districts in the state which have been declared red zones and have hotspots due to increasing number of coronavirus positive cases. In these districts, the rate of doubling of COVID-19 patients is less than four days.
Districts in orange zone are those where no cases of coronavirus have been reported in the last 14 days, while the green zone covers those districts where no coronavirus case has been reported or no new coronavirus case has been reported during the last 28 days.
Awasthi said that 8,140 industrial units had started functioning and around 3.43 lakh workers were engaged there. Besides, he said, eight lakh workers were working in different projects across 27,000 gram panchayats and around 25,000 new jobs cards were issued to migrant workers, who returned to the state after lockdown.
The additional chief secretary said that the process of sending 15,000 students from Prayagraj to their home districts had started and 351 buses were used for the job till Wednesday evening. He said 30 students were being accommodated in every bus.
“Thus, more than 10,000 students have reached their homes. Also 150 more buses have been deployed for this. These students will have to undergo health tests and their medical test will be done in their home districts,” he said.