{"id":170947,"date":"2020-05-02T15:53:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T15:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/punjabpost.in\/welcome\/?p=170947"},"modified":"2020-05-02T17:13:22","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T17:13:22","slug":"capt-amarinder-asks-health-dept-push-rt-pcr-covid-testing-6000day-may-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/punjabpost.in\/welcome\/170947","title":{"rendered":"Capt Amarinder asks Health Dept to push Rt-Pcr Covid Testing to 6000\/Day by May 15"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: center; background: white;\" align=\"center\"><b><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; color: red;\">Not to rely on other States\u2019 tests on returnees<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Chandigarh,<\/span><span style=\"color: black;\"> May 2 (Punjab Post Bureau) &#8211; <\/span><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday asked the <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-168152 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/punjabpost.in\/welcome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Captain-Amrinder-3.jpg\" alt=\"Captain Amrinder 3\" width=\"399\" height=\"331\" srcset=\"https:\/\/punjabpost.in\/welcome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Captain-Amrinder-3.jpg 399w, https:\/\/punjabpost.in\/welcome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Captain-Amrinder-3-300x249.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 399px) 100vw, 399px\" \/>Health Department to ramp up the RT-PCR Covid testing facilities in the state to 6000 a day by the May 15, instead of the targeted 5,800 a day by May end, while directing it to conduct its own tests on all returnees instead of going by the tests done in other states.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Pointing to the large number of returnees had now tested positive, the Chief Minister said it was clear that Punjab could not rely on the tests conducted on its people stranded in other places by those respective states.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Referring to the fact that several staffers at the Nanded gurdwara itself had now tested positive, the Chief Minister said with this the Akali claim, that there were no positive cases in Nanded and the pilgrims had got infected on the way back or on reaching Punjab, had been trashed. He once again asked the Opposition to stop indulging in petty politicking over such a grave issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">This was a crucial time in the state\u2019s fight against Covid, the Chief Minister said during a VC meeting with the Council of Ministers, which took a series of decisions to scale up the state government\u2019s Corona battle. Directing the Health Department to come out with a plan to advance its schedule for increasing the testing capacity, the Chief Minister stressed the need to be prepared for the worst. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Captain Amarinder said he had already asked the Chief Secretary to coordinate with the central government to scale up the testing capacity to 20000 a day, to cope with the influx of migrants and others expected to return to the state over the next few weeks in the wake of the new directives of the Government of India. The rapid testing would also need to be scaled exponentially, to at least 2 lakh, once it resumes, the Chief Secretary said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The Chief Minister said he had also asked Baba Farid University Vice Chancellor to explore the feasibility of setting up a testing facility in Jalandhar, for which the government was ready to sanction an immediate grant of Rs 1 crore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The Chief Minister\u2019s directions on augmenting the testing facilities came two days after he ordered strict quarantining of those returning to Punjab from other states, and in the wake of test reports of 292 people returning from Maharashtra showing positive. In response to a suggestion by some of the Ministers, the Chief Minister agreed to examine their proposal for home quarantine of the returnees in coordination with the village Sarpanches and Panchayats.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Captain Amarinder told the Cabinet that he had deputed individual officers to coordinate with each state for facilitating the return of Punjabis.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; background: white;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu assured the Chief Minister that all pending testing reports would be cleared in the next day or two, to ensure that there is no delay in identifying and addressing positive cases. He said arrangements for increasing testing by roping in a private lab had also been finalized and 2000 samples from across the state had been sent to them today.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: center; background: white;\" align=\"center\"><b><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not to rely on other States\u2019 tests on returnees &nbsp;Chandigarh, May 2 (Punjab Post Bureau) &#8211; Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday asked the Health Department to ramp up the RT-PCR Covid testing facilities in the state to 6000 a day by the May 15, instead of the targeted 5,800 a day by &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-articles","category-english"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Capt Amarinder asks Health Dept to push Rt-Pcr Covid Testing to 6000\/Day by May 15 | Punjab Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/punjabpost.in\/welcome\/170947\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Capt Amarinder asks Health Dept to push Rt-Pcr Covid Testing to 6000\/Day by May 15 | Punjab Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not to rely on other States\u2019 tests on returnees &nbsp;Chandigarh, May 2 (Punjab Post Bureau) &#8211; 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