Chief Secretary: Make Covid testing available 24x7

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

To combat fresh surge of Covid infections in the state, Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Saturday asked officials concerned to make Covid testing available 24x7.

While reviewing Covid preparedness, she directed all administrative secretaries to visit respective districts assigned to them for monitoring Covid response efforts and to review preparedness in case of a second wave of infections, including contact tracing and patient tracking, protocols for referral, strengthening of Level-3 facilities and also ramping up Covid testing across the state.

Mahajan said all the officials concerned had been directed to ensure that minimum 15 contacts of each positive patient must be identified and tested as per the Covid-19 guidelines.

The departments concerned should be ready to tackle the possible second wave of the pandemic, said the Chief Secretary, adding that it was also the responsibility of the people to actively participate in the fight against Covid.

Meanwhile, cases continue to surge even on Saturday as the state reported 719 cases and 23 deaths in the last 24 hours. As per media bulletin released on Thursday, with fresh cases the total number of cases has reached 1,45,667 and the number of deaths reached 4,595. The number of active cases has reached 6,561.