Delhi to start door-to-door survey from today amid Covid-19 surge

The Delhi government will be conducting a door-to-door survey starting Friday to identify symptomatic people amid a spike in coronavirus cases in the national capital.

The survey will cover almost 58 lakh Delhiites living in 4,500-odd containment zones and also in areas outside the containment zones that have a high caseload.

The AAP government has already roped in several teachers of its schools to be part of the five-day exercise beginning today.

The Delhi government teams will screen people, encourage more tests for Covid-19 and keep a record of high-risk individuals, including elderly, pregnant women and people with co-morbidities.

Nearly 10,000 teams formed

Today's survey will likely start in around three out of 11 revenue districts in Delhi and then extend to all 11 by the weekend. Nearly 10,000 teams of the Delhi govt have been formed in the 11 districts of the city.

Also, physical parameters of those residents, including their temperature and oxygen saturation (SpO2), will be checked as part of the survey.

Following a meeting between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, it was decided that the survey in Delhi will be conducted by the teams of AIIMS, the AAP government and municipal corporations, and all the symptomatic people found in the survey would be tested and provided the necessary treatment.

"Surveillance teams have been constituted and deployed for conducting a door-to-door survey of all the households in the hotspot and vulnerable areas of Delhi. The survey shall be completed within five days and each team shall survey 50 households every day," a government official said.

"During the drive, the teachers roped in will be on field duty, thus they will not be able to take online classes or other official duty," the official added.

Meanwhile, Delhi recorded 7,546 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, taking the total count to 5,10,630.

According to the city Health Department, 6,685 people recovered from the deadly virus today and the total recoveries now has gone up to 4,59,368.

The death toll due to Covid-19 has reached 8,041 after 98 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. The active cases in Delhi stand at 43,221.