Each team of about two-three members is expected to cover 40-50 houses every day (Representational)
Team formation by drawing personnel from various departments started today to implement the Delhi government's revised COVID-19 response plan that includes, among other steps, door to surveys for screening coronavirus-infected people.
Completing house-to-house screening for coronavirus by July 6, admitting positive patients in highly population-dense areas to COVID-19 care centres and CCTV or drone monitoring to prohibit movement inside containment zones are among the eight points of the revised COVID-19 response plan issued by the Delhi government.
The house-to-house screening will be completed by June 30 in containment zones and for the rest of Delhi by July 6, in a mammoth exercise, as per the revised plan.
District-level officials said teams for the exercise are being formed with personnel including booth-level officers, civil defence volunteers, Anganwadi workers and civic bodies staff among others.
"The exercise is daunting but the required number of personnel are being requisitioned for completion of the survey by the last date," said a district magistrate.
A senior government officer said the total number of teams will depend on the number of households in each district and it will be need based.
"We have staff like the booth-level officers and those in municipal corporations who have been involved in door to door surveys for long, so the entire screening exercise is likely to be completed without any major problems," he said.
The survey will begin from June 27 and will be completed by July 6. Each team of about two-three members is expected to cover 40-50 houses every day and thus the entire district could be covered in the ten-day period.
Officials said the number of households vary from district to district. The city has around 45 lakh households, and each district is likely to form over 1,000 teams to wrap up the survey by July 6, they said.
A high-level committee set up by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday recommended quarantine of contacts of all COVID-19 positive cases in Delhi and re-mapping of all containment zones to check the rapid spread of the coronavirus infection in the national capital.
Active case search in containment zones and vigorous contact tracing of COVID positive patients will be undertaken to analyse the reasons for clustering, the plan said.
"Testing of suspects will be augmented by universal application of Rapid Antigen Test. An Incident Command System/District level COVID Control Room lead by DM of the concerned district and technically assisted by Senior Public Health Specialist deputed from either MCD (DHO) Medical Colleges faculty with IT Support and manpower will be established at each DM office," the plan said.
Rapid antigen test which is currently being used for screening of population in the containment zones as per Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines shall be strictly followed, it said. Teams will be deployed for daily case search, testing and isolation.
According to the plan, police shall be deployed to enforce physical distancing measures and prevention of intermixing of the population inside the containment zones. The police personnel will have to ensure strict perimeter control and "absolute restriction of outward and inward movement of the population".
Currently, there are 266 containment zones in the national capital.