New Delhi: Doubling COVID-19 testing capacity to 1-1.2 lakh daily and increasing ICU beds to over 6,000 are among the decisions taken by the government to tackle the spike in coronavirus infections in Delhi, the Centre said on Tuesday. A decision has also been taken to increase house-to-house surveillance of active cases in containment zones and other vulnerable pockets in the national capital and 7,000-8,000 teams will be engaged for this exercise, an increase from the existing 3,000 teams that are currently involved.

At a press conference, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan spoke about the upsurge in number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi and the action plan made by the health ministry in cooperation with the Delhi government, Indian Council of Medical Research, NITI Aayog and AIIMS to control the chain of spread of the pandemic. "Delhi was testing very less in June at around 5,776 tests per day and that number rose to over 50,000 in September which after it plateaued out and the recent spike of COVID-19 infections may be because many positive cases escaped the net.

"A steady increase in the number of tests is crucial or else a huge number of people with infection might escape from our radar and it may result in further spread of the infection," he stressed. "In the last two days, decision of urgent actions taken by the government included an increase in overall beds, including ICU beds, doubling testing to 1-1.2 lakh per day, right mix of RT-PCR and antigen tests, strengthening and augmenting home care support, mobilising doctors and nurses, enforcing quarantine of contacts, containment zone SOPs and COVID appropriate behaviour," Bhushan added.

Elaborating further,NITI Aayog member (health) Dr V KPaul, who also heads the National Task Force on COVID-19said the ICU bed capacity will be increased from 3,523 to over 6,000 in the next few days in hospitals across Delhi. "The capacity of ICU beds, which was 3,523 will be increased to over 6,000in the 3 to 5 days. The Union government, Delhi government and private sector will jointly work to accomplish this.