Fever surveillance workers visiting households looking for Covid-like symptoms, constant monitoring of tests and CT scans in private labs, home triaging, car ambulance service, ramping up vaccination drive and tele-counselling for patients under home isolation.
This multi-pronged strategy worked wonders for the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) whose daily cases dipped to 1,345 on June 9 from 7,130 on May 9. The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) in the city has also come down to less than five per cent for the first time since March.
The TPR is below 5 per cent since June 7, and the active cases have also come down drastically to 14,678 at the last count on June 10 morning. The second wave was quite vociferous in the city with its robust health infrastructure coming under severe stress for about a month.
Disaster mitigation expert taking over as GCC chief
At the heart of this turnaround in just a month is the GCC team led by senior IAS officer Gagandeep Singh Bedi, considered a disaster mitigation expert for his splendid relief work post-2004 tsunami in one of the worst-affected districts of Cuddalore in Central Tamil Nadu.
Though he is much senior for the post of GCC Commissioner, new Chief Minister M K Stalin hand-picked the seasoned bureaucrat due to his past track record.
Hitting the ground immediately after taking charge on May 9, Bedi strengthened the fever surveillance system, the backbone of GCC’s fight against Covid since 2020, intensified the vaccination drive, and appointed 300 doctors to keep track of the health of patients quarantined at home through phone.
“The city is divided into 15 zones and one IAS officer is in charge of each zone. 16 IAS officers, including me, analyse the data collected by 12,000 fever surveillance workers almost every day to ensure follow-up of people who experience Covid-like symptoms. The constant monitoring helps us in detecting the infection early, and reducing further spread,” Bedi told DH.
Besides fever camps across the city, nearly 300 mobile teams criss-cross the city every day to get swabs from people at their doorsteps or in their neighbourhood.
Ramping up and prioritising vaccination
Another high-point of the efforts was to ramp up vaccination drives by taking it to their doorsteps, special vaccination camps for differently-abled, and inoculating those who are immobile at their homes to further contain Covid-19 spread. People considered as vulnerable to Covid-19 infection those working in markets, fishing harbour, and other crowded places were identified and vaccinated on priority.
As cases rose exponentially in the city, the GCC had in April this year re-launched the triage centres that help in rational allotment of hospital beds, and patients getting appropriate treatment as per their condition.
Bedi took it a step further by getting triaging done for Covid-positive patients under 45 years of age at their homes, to ease the pressure on triage centres and to ensure they don’t infect others.
“A doctor with paramedical staff, in their PPEs, will visit the patient, assess their condition, and decide whether they need hospitalisation, admission at a Care Centre or can be quarantined at home. This helped us isolate the patient and prevent his loved ones from getting affected,” he explained.
Car ambulances and monitoring of private labs
Car ambulances to transport stable patients from their homes to Covid Care Centres (CCC) or hospitals is another idea conceptualised by Bedi and his team to reduce pressure on the 108 ambulances that have oxygen support. The ‘car ambulance’ model was appreciated by the Union Government.
Another initiative that helped in promptly treating Covid-19 patients was asking private labs to share results of swab tests with the GCC every night before they are intimated to the patients. Also, standing instructions were given to diagnostics centres, and pharmacies to send daily reports to keep a tab on asymptomatic patients.
“Many of these cases were not coming to our notice. Once the labs send the results to the GCC in the night, the first thing our staff did in the morning is to inform the patients that they have tested positive for Covid-19, and decide their treatment call by triaging at their doorstep or a centre. This helped us in beginning the treatment immediately,” Bedi said.
By monitoring pharmacies and scan centres, Bedi said, GCC could identify those who had symptoms and get them tested immediately. “The worrying part of it was asymptomatic people moving around without knowing that they are positive. Through this outreach with scan centres and pharmacies, we could reach many asymptomatic patients and get them tested and treated,” he added.
Monitoring home quarantined patients and the future
To monitor those in the home quarantine, the GCC hired 300 doctors who called up positive patients every day and kept a tab on their health. If a person experienced fever for five days during his quarantine, the patient was shifted to a hospital or a Covid Care Centre for further monitoring.
Though the cases have gone down, Bedi said the GCC is not letting the guard down anytime soon.
“Our testing remains the same, and we have not reduced the testing number. We continue to conduct 32,000 samples a day while emphasizing vaccination, and the Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. Besides our efforts, the state-wide lockdown did help us in containing the spread,” he added.
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