Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked officials to start the process to link medical institutes with virtual ICUs by using technology in such a way that the serious patients may get treatment from experienced doctors.

He also asked the officials to keep ventilators/high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) functional in all districts.

Presiding over a high-level Unlock review meeting at the Lok Bhawan here on Thursday, Yogi also directed officials to adopt an effective strategy to control spread of novel coronavirus in districts where 100 or more positive cases are being found every day for the last one week.

The chief minister directed the chief secretary, additional chief secretaries of home (health and medical education) along with medical experts to hold a detailed discussion to finalise the action plan in this regard.

He reiterated that nodal officers be nominated in these districts with deployment of special secretary-rank officers with each of nodal officer.

The chief minister asked officials to maximise contact tracing for effective control on coronavirus infection. He also asked them to target high risk groups and put them to tests. 

He said one-third of the total Covid tests per day should be conducted through RT-PCR and the rest by rapid antigen method. 

He further directed officials to increase the number of beds in Covid Level-2 and Level-3 hospitals.

The chief minister stressed on taking up enforcement exercise to check observance of social distancing and use of masks by people.

“Create micro-containment zones as and where required. Public address systems should be functional all the time to spread awareness about protection from coronavirus and the prevailing traffic rules,” he said.

The chief minister directed officials to maintain the availability of all protective gears, including masks, PPE kits and sanitiser and medicines, testing kits used in the treatment. 

“The Health department should also review these requirements from time to time,” he added, stressing on sanitation and cleanliness.

The chief minister said that the people should be sensitised about protection from COVID-19 in view of coming festivals. He said the festivals had to be celebrated at home and no public functions should be organised and all the norms of social distancing and use of masks should be followed strictly.

The chief minister directed officials to review progress of Smart City projects and AMRUT Yojana on a regular basis. He asked them to proceed in an organised manner to get maximum benefits of the special economic package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that more and more labourers and street vendors should be facilitated to get loans and the loaning for MSME units through packages should be facilitated accordingly. 

He asked the officials to keep cow shelters in Bundelkhand region properly functional.