Break transmission chain: Centre to 15 high Covid load districts, including Ludhiana, Patiala

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 4

The Centre on Friday asked leaders of five states with high active case load and deaths to break the chain of COVID transmission and reduce death rate below one per cent.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan today held a video conference with the Health Secretaries of 15 districts across Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh asking to aggressively test and track patients.

These 15 districts comprise Chittoor, Prakasam, Mysuru, Bengaluru Urban, Ballari, Koppal, Dakshina Kannada, Davangere, Ludhiana, Patiala, Chennai, Coimbatore, Salem, Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar.

These have been exhibiting higher active caseload, fatality rates and a surge in the COVID cases for the past four weeks.

The Centre has asked these districts to limit and eventually break the spread of the infection by implementing containment measures and follow social distancing measures, strict peri-meter control, and active house-to-house case search; conduct early identification of cases by ramping up testing across the districts and effectively monitor home isolation cases and ensure ambulance availability.