New Delhi: The way Uttar Pradesh handled the second COVID-19 wave well, is a result of careful planning, bold decisions, multiple strategies, close monitoring, ground level understanding and handling of the situation along with the empathetic attitude of government towards its people. All this requires strong and uncompromising leadership and needless to say, CM Yogi yet again proved his efficient management skills.

Uttar Pradesh with a population of around 23 crores has fared better than any other state in tackling the pandemic. The “UP Model of Covid Management” has been recently lauded by the NITI Aayong and the World Health Organization.

UP’s Covid management model had a multipronged approach- a combination of strong initiatives, bold decisions and campaigns that were undertaken by the Government of Uttar Pradesh since the second wave hit the most populous state.

NITI Aayog and the WHO appreciated the UP-government’s initiative of a door-to-door testing campaign by RRTs and surveillance teams in around 97000 revenue villages of the state to combat the spread of the virus across the villages.

What constitutes the UP Model of Covid Management

A deeper analysis will unearth how these strategies of CM Yogi helped the state in combating the virus. Let us now understand the key elements of the UP Model.

Trace, Test and Treat

The T3 (Trace, Test and Treat) policy of Yogi Adityanath has done the trick as far as control of Covid is concerned. The Active Cases dropped drastically below the 2 lakh-mark for the first time since April 30.

The active Covid cases have been reduced by more than one lakh seventeen thousand from its peak which went up to 3,10,784 cases on April 30, and has now come down to 1,93,815. The state for the thirteenth consecutive day recorded more daily recoveries than the number of fresh cases — in the same span of time.

Following the Trace, Test and Treat regime, UP has conducted more than 4.36 crore test so far.

Door-to-Door Massive Testing Drive in UP Villages

To curb the infection in rural Uttar Pradesh, on the instructions of CM Yogi Adityanath, the Team workers are reaching the houses of patients to treat and counsel them. More than 4 lakh members of surveillance committees are conducting door-to-door tests, enabling early detection, isolation and treatment and keeping the virus from spreading further in around 97000 villages.

Taking it to Twitter, NITI Aayong wrote“House to house visits undertaken in a mammoth drive in over 90,000 villages of UP to identify & isolate COVID+ve citizens & trace contacts should serve as a model for other states to replicate. Such proactive test-trace-treat model is a highly effective way of tackling the surge!”

Even the World Health Organization lauded the efforts of the Uttar Pradesh government to contain the virus in rural areas. According to a World Health Organisation report, the state resorted to the proven and tested measures of “micro-planning, house visits, concurrent monitoring and follow-ups”. The WHO also supported the initiatives taken by the Yogi Adityanath government saying that this is much needed to control the spread of covid-19 in the state.

Surveillance Teams and RRTs

Aiming to break the chain of infection and keep villages safe from corona infection, the Yogi government have deployed around 69000 Surveillance committees. Each Surveillance Committee has two members, who visit homes in villages and remote hamlets to test everyone with symptoms of COVID-19 using Rapid Antigen Tests kits. These committees are also providing medical kits to home isolated patients and others with symptoms.

Saving Lives and Livelihood

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister made it clear in the beginning of the second wave that the state government would not go for lockdowns in a big way and only resort to partial curfew to break the COVID-19 chain. CM Yogi said that complete lockdowns would adversely affect the livelihood of people, especially of the lower strata. The Government is committed to saving lives and livelihood of its people.Effort is to save lives in COVID-19, minimize impact on economic activities, livelihood.The government imposed a partial corona curfew and suggested the officials to initiate strict action with those violating Covid protocols.

Feeding the Needy

As the state reels under the second wave of Covid-19, the Yogi government is making continuous efforts in feeding those who are displaced by the pandemic. Over 300 community kitchens set up by the Government of Uttar Pradesh are feeding over 1 lakh people every day. The Yogi government has made elaborate arrangements to distribute free meals for the daily wage workers and anyone else in need at their workplaces.

Oxygen supply management

It is worth mentioning that Uttar Pradesh Government’s innovative model of developing an ‘OxyTracker’ on instructions of CM Yogi Adityanath to ensure smooth, timely and transparent supply of medical oxygen in times of crisis to the covid critical patients in government and private hospitals with 24×7 live monitoring of the life-saving fluid also has gathered huge praise by the NITI Aayog.

Praising the innovative measure NITI Aayog wrote, “A laudable model for oxygen transport & tracking! UPGovt has established oxygen hubs & developed a dashboard -OxyTracker, through which tankers can be tracked in real-time. This allows quick & smart allocation of oxygen. Result-1000MT O2 being lifted instead of 250MT before!”
The state has successfully been able to arrange, regulate and maintain supply of more than 1000 MT of medical oxygen within the time period of 24 hours alone.

Aggressive Vaccination

As many states curtail vaccinations claiming dose shortages amid a record surge in coronavirus infections, the UP Government has worked on war footing to ensure the vaccination drive reaches the majority of its population.

The state has so far administered as many as 1,45,83,503 doses of vaccine. Of these, 1,14,67,023 have received their first doses and around 31,16,480 got their second doses of vaccine. Till now, a total of 3,15,532 doses have been administered to people above 18 years’ age bracket. CM Yogi has been consistently working to ramp up the vaccination drive in the state. The state government had floated a global tender for 40 million of vaccine doses earlier this month to fulfil its huge requirements of vaccine doses.

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