GoM to review COVID-19 preparations on Monday

The Group of Ministers on COVID-19 will be reviewing the preparation of the states to contain the pandemic on Monday as Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan reviewed the measures taken by states and Union Territories in terms of quarantine facilities, isolation wards, adequacy of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), masks, and testing kits.

The minister has directed for scaling up capacity of the 24x7 Control Room Helpline by adding more lines and additional human resource, to serve the queries on COVID-19 through the control room the number of the helpline is 011-23978046.

The Health Minister has advised the states to maintain hygiene and cleanliness in the hospitals and adhere to all laid down protocols for containment and management of COVID-19 and reviewed the steps taken by various states for social distancing in great detail.

The measures taken for avoiding non-essential travel and mass gatherings were also reviewed by the Health Minister.

"The Union Health Minister discussed the measures to be taken for strengthening capacities of the states, mass awareness among the people for prevention through social distancing, work-from-home. Management of quarantine facilities was discussed in detail at the review meeting," said a statement issued by the ministry.

The government has evacuated 218 Indian citizens from Milan, Italy who arrived in Delhi this morning. These evacuees are quarantined at the ITBP camp at Chhawla.

The third batch of 236 evacuees from Iran arrived on Sunday and they are being quarantined at the Indian Army facility in Jaisalmer. The passengers have already been tested prior to their departure from Iran and reported to be asymptomatic at present.

A total of 265 passengers coming from COVID-19 affected countries have been quarantined at Trivandrum, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

As of now, 23 new cases have been detected since the last update. Of these, 17 are from Maharashtra, 2 from Telangana, 1 from Rajasthan and 3 from Kerala. Both deceased patients in India had pre-existing co-morbidities.

Contact tracing of these cases is being rigorously pursued. So far, this has led to identification of more than 4,000 contacts who have been put under surveillance.

The Buldana patient, who was in a private hospital and whose sample was taken and who died on Saturday, has tested negative for COVID-19. IANS