NEW DELHI: The Centre has asked every district to immediately identify and earmark around 500 beds for Covid-19 patients and ramp up temporary health facilities to ensure effective surveillance and screening in every nook and corner of the country.Teams with representatives from the health ministry and the World Health Organisation will visit individual districts to validate creation of infrastructure and ensure adequate measures are taken to combat spread of the infection.The decisions are part of a detailed plan charted by the empowered committee on isolation and hospital facilities. The committee held a meeting with district collectors on Monday and asked them to create such facilities at the earliest.The primary focus is to treat 80% of the cases at the level of Covid Care Centres and Covid Health Centres. Therefore, large number of temporary clinics will be set up in identified schools, hostels, hotels and lodges which will be linked with ambulances and district hospitals.The Dedicated Covid Hospitals will act as referral points for Covid Care and Covid Health centres.The government is also ramping up its response and preparedness commensurate with the increasing number of positive cases, the heath ministry said on Wednesday.“We are working with a twin approach of implementing lockdown and social distancing measures along with stringent containment strategy,” heath ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said.The Centre has also asked states to focus on surveillance and contact tracing. Besides, infrastructure at the field level must be increased immediately, joint secretary Agarwal said.In hospitals, the focus is on infection prevention and control measures so that health workers aren’t infected by Covid-19, he said.The government also maintained that there was sufficient stock of hydroxychloroquine available in the country and this was being monitored at the highest level of the government.