Yellow, Amber, Orange, Red: Colored Action Plan to Steer the Covid-19 Response from Delhi | Latest Delhi News

A committee of experts appointed by Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal to lead the state government’s Covid-19 preparations is drafting a color-coded action plan to help the government take a range of measures ranging from blocking curbs to reserving hospital beds, to combat an outbreak, a senior government official said on Friday.

The committee chose four color-coded warnings in ascending order of severity – yellow, yellow, orange, and red. The warnings are similar to the plan the state is putting in place to combat air pollution in the city during winter, the official said.

Under the tiered action plan, the air quality scale is broken down into several tiers – moderate, bad, very bad, severe, and major-plus or emergency. When the city’s air quality reaches a certain level, the government and air quality monitoring and enforcement agencies are asked to follow a list of do’s and don’ts that must be implemented.

“Each warning will come with its own preventive and mitigating measures,” the official said.

“The aim is to avoid unnecessary delays. It is expected that there will be a better and more consistent sense of what type and extent of restrictions need to be implemented at what stage as new cases and other parameters such as the increase in positivity rate. “

The eight-member expert committee, consisting of doctors, clinic managers and bureaucrats, is in the final phase of drawing up the graduated action plan. On May 27, Kejriwal, along with another 13-person committee, formed the Preparatory Committee, which focuses on the medical and technical aspects of Covid-19 preparation, including medical oxygen, drugs, pediatrics and so on. The eight-member committee was tasked with developing guidelines on lockdown announcements and the levels of containment required by various Covid-19 scenarios, the number of tests to be performed in a day, containment policies, contact tracing targets, hospital bed reservations, and similar issues.

“The committee is expected to gradually develop several action plans based on various combinations of factors such as new cases, test positive rate, deaths, death rate and active cases,” said the senior government official.

A color-coded warning will be issued when a variety of Covid-19 metrics meet a preset goal, the official said. For example, as part of the state’s daily health bulletin, a special warning is issued if the test positive rate remains at a certain level for a set number of days and the number of new cases on a certain number of times exceeds a certain guideline.

“The plan should be prepared so that each phase of the plan can be activated within a short period of time,” added the official.

Dr. Jugal Kishore, Head of Community Medicine Department at Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, said, “Such a strategy can be very useful in getting the right message across to the masses. Currently the government only shares numbers. Numbers that appear to me to be a threat may seem relatively safe to another person. A color-coded system can add objectivity and help people assess which precautions to take at which stage. A tiered action plan will also ensure better resource allocation, protect contact tracing and domestic isolation models, and facilitate triage for surveillance teams. “

Triage is the process of prioritizing treatments for patients based on the severity of their condition or the likelihood of recovery with and without treatment.

Delhi saw its fourth and worst Covid-19 surge in April and May. At its peak, the city recorded more than 28,300 cases in a day on April 20, and a positivity rate of more than 30% in mid-April. A severe shortage of medical oxygen in the city during the wave – which also saw hospitals run out of beds, intensive care units, ventilators and life-saving drugs – further added to the high death toll.

As of Friday, Delhi recorded 93 new cases and a positivity rate of 0.13%, the government health bulletin said.