Rejecting the possibility of lockdown amid the increasing cases of new variant – Omicron, Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said Delhi Government will implement ‘Graded Response Action Plan’ (GRAP).
“There is no possibility of lockdown in Delhi, GRAP will be followed if the cases rise,” Jain said, asserting, “prevention is better than cure hence Central government should ban flights coming from affected counties from the Omicron variant.”
The health department has increased testing considering the potential threat of the new variant as a total of 27 people have been admitted to the LNJP hospital, out of which 17 people are positive and only one person has been confirmed to have Omicron variant and investigation is on for the rest of the people. “All the patients have been admitted to LNJP hospital and many of them are asymptomatic,” Jain added.
Explaining further more on GRAP, Jain added, “In this system, when the positivity rate reaches to 0.5% i.e out of 1000 people tested 5 are positive, then the first level of this system will be implemented. The second level will be implemented when we will reach to a positivity rate of 1%, meaning that 10 people test positive out of 1000, the third level will be implemented at a positivity rate of 2%, when 20 people test positive out of a testing sample of 1000 people and the last stage or the red level will be initiated when we reach a positivity rate of 5%, meaning that 50 people test positive out of the 1000 people tested.”
“Last time, the red level was implemented when we had reached a positivity rate of about 14-15%. However, at present the cases of corona in Delhi are much below 0.5%, so no lockdown will be imposed right now,” he added.
As per the health department, in the national capital, more than 93 percent of people have received the first dose of the vaccine and more than 61.3% of people have taken both doses. Those who are vaccinated also need to follow covid appropriate behaviour.
Earlier, Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal wrote a letter to the Center appealing to stop the flights coming from the countries affected by the Omicron variant for some time.