UP increases Covid-19 hospital beds to 100k, targets 20,000 tests per day

Amid the influx of 3 million migrant workers from other states owing to the Covid-19 lockdown, the Uttar Pradesh government has ramped up the number of Covid-19 beds to 100,000 to deal with any eventuality.

These beds have been arranged in level 1, 2 and 3 covid hospitals across the state, even though the government estimates that going by the current rate of infection, the state would not need such a large provisioning for patients and suspect cases.

“Now, our focus is more on the qualitative aspect of Covid-19 care, including medical supplies, training etc to fight the pandemic,” UP medical and health principal secretary Amit Mohan Prasad said in Lucknow on Sunday.

At present, 2,938 patients are recuperating in the different isolation wards, while nearly 9,000 people are lodged in the quarantine facilities, which includes suspects or contacts of Covid-19 positive cases in the state.

Besides, UP is planning to increase the daily sample testing capacity to 20,000 in the near future from 10,000 at present.

“While, we have already touched the daily testing count of 10,000, we are aiming to increase it to 15,000 by June 15. With the deployment of new machines, we are looking to hit the 20,000 daily testing mark soon thereafter,” UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi said.

He said the government would write to the Railway Board to provide a safety protocol handbill to all the passengers, since normal train services are resuming from June 1 even as Shramik Special trains continue to ferry migrants to the state.

So far, UP has reported a total of 7,823 coronavirus cases across 75 districts, of which 4,709 have been discharged. Around 213 patients have succumbed to the infection, leaving 2,901 active cases.

Meanwhile, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers have surveyed 1.13 million migrants and reported 1,027 suspect cases to the state medical department for testing.

Besides, nearly 100,000 health department teams have surveyed and screened 39.4 million people in the containment and non-containment zones for sample collection and identification of suspect cases.

So far, the UP government has arranged for 1,636 Shramik Special trains to ferry UP workers, of which 1,567 have arrived, while the remaining are expected to arrive in the next one or two days, Awasthi added.

While most of the trains have arrived from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Delhi accounting for 522, 418, 233 and 97, respectively. Some trains have also come from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala etc.

The state government has also speeded up the process of distribution of food grains under the public distribution system (PDS) with the number of ration card holders standing at 35 million in UP. The ration shop owners have been warned against any under weighing in ration distribution, as a first information report (FIR) will be lodged in such cases.