After Noida, authorities in Gurgaon and Faridabad have started random testing of people coming into the city from Delhi which is struggling with it's worst phase of the COVID-19 pandemic so far with cases and deaths touching record highs.
Commuters are being randomly tested at all Delhi-Gurgaon Borders and the administration says the exercise will help them identify areas which are the worst affected. So far they have tested over 400 people at the border and have found three positive cases.
"We have set up six camps at borders of Gurgaon for random sampling. No one is being forced. Malls, markets, bus conductors and drivers are also being covered. The goal is to identify infected people as early as possible so the virus does not spread," Dr Virender Yadav, the Chief Medical Officer of Gurgaon, told NDTV.
Authorities in Noida had on Wednesday started random testing of people coming from Delhi at the borders of the two cities amid a spike in coronavirus cases in the national capital.
The positivity rate among people randomly tested for COVID-19 at Gautam Buddh Nagar's Delhi border was higher than in non-border areas of the district on Thursday, according to officials.
Delhi has been grappling with a surge in coronavirus cases that have soared past the 5 lakh mark with more than 100 deaths a day while it also battles horrific levels of air pollution that experts believe makes COVID-19 more deadly.
This week, the city of 2 crore residents quadrupled fines for not wearing a mask, violating social distancing norms or spitting in public to Rs 2,000 at a time when hospitals have been running low on beds.
Under pressure to control the new wave, Mr Kejriwal has announced the addition of 1,400 intensive care beds and asked the central government for powers to shut down markets that become hotspots.
India has seen a drop in daily cases over the past month but it is still registering about 45,000 new infections on average every day.
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