E-Paper
Ghaziabad: District to be divided into five zones for better Covid monitoring
Ghaziabad: With the rising number of Covid-19 cases as well as of Covid patients being discharged, the district administration has come up with classification for
Ghaziabad: With the rising number of Covid-19 cases as well as of Covid patients being discharged, the district administration has come up with classification for different zones which will also include areas marked as “Corona-free,” “observation” and “inter/intra district” zones. Officials said they have a different plan laid out for each of the five zones.
The district till August 21 had a total of 7,049 Covid-19 cases, which includes 5,846 patients (82.93%) discharged and 67 dead, besides 1,136 active cases. The district at present has 338 active containment zones in different parts of the district.
“The idea for dividing areas into different zones is to have a separate plan laid out of activities which will be specific to each zone. Every zone will be monitored by different teams of officers in order to prevent spread of infection. So, in this way, different resources will be dedicated to different zones in order to take up measures,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate.
The Corona-free zones will be marked in areas where no case has come up in the past 28 days and regular health related activities will be taken up besides awareness campaigns will be launched with the help of RWAs and other prominent persons of the areas.
The other set of zones will be defined as observation zones where no cases have resulted during the past 14 days. These zones will have deployment teams who will report daily about symptomatic cases so that the virus can be treated at the earliest.
“The zones identified as inter-district or inter-state will be the ones where boundaries of nearby districts or states meet. These areas will need special monitoring and door to door surveys will be taken up, in addition to special camps for Covid-19 testing. Since these areas are near the borders, there is special need to pay attention to these areas in order to prevent the local population getting infected,” the DM added.
The parameters for the other two zones – containment zones and buffer zones – are already in practice as part of the containment exercise. The category 1 containment zones (having one case) are defined in a radius of 100 metres while the category 2 zones are defined in an area of 200 metres of radius.
The major containment zones in the district are 63 each under jurisdiction of Sihani Gate and Indirapuram police station areas and having 124 and 130 active cases, respectively. The Kavi Nagar police station area has 42 zones with 155 active cases while the jurisdiction of Sahibabad police station area has 30 zones with 103 active cases up to August 19.
The buffer zones will be defined in areas which have their boundaries close to the containment zones. From these zones, officials will seek information of suspected cases from local doctors, chemists and even clinics.
Under the two zones, special surveillance drives to detect influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases will be taken up more vigorously along with household surveys.
