Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed all government departments and district administrations to set up Covid helpdesks in large numbers to screen people for coronavirus infection.
The government has set a target of setting up 10,000 Covid helpdesks across the state and around 6,500 are working at present.
All government offices, hospitals, police stations, private hospitals and industrial units have set up Covid helpdesks where teams check people with infrared thermometers, pulse oximeters and take down details of those screened.
At a routine meeting of Team 11 in Lucknow on Wednesday, the CM said that after achieving the target of 25,000 Covid tests per day, the target should now be raised to 30,000 tests per day.
He said that TrueNat machines for testing coronavirus should be set up at private hospitals in large numbers after taking permission from ICMR.
“Testing of Covid in private hospitals will help non-Covid treatment in large numbers too,” he said.
After the meeting, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said that the CM also gave his nod for setting up a Covid testing lab in Ghaziabad, where coronavirus patients have been detected in large numbers in recent weeks.
Besides, he said, the government also received 50,000 additional kits of rapid antigen tests which would be used in six districts of Meerut division.
At present, these tests are being done in 11 districts of UP.
Yogi also directed district officials to be strict on people not wearing masks in public, especially in big cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Noida, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Agra and Meerut. The officials were also asked to enforce night curfew during Unlock 2.0.
Meanwhile, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said that the recovery rate of coronavirus positive cases was increasing by the day and on Wednesday it stood at 69.12 per cent.
“A new milestone was achieved when the state carried out a record 26,479 tests on Wednesday. The target is to achieve 25,000 tests per day in June, but more tests have been done. The state has carried out Covid tests in the excess of 7.58 lakh so far,” he said.
