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Ghaziabad sees threefold increase in containment zones in 11 days
Amid the rising Covid-19 cases in Ghaziabad, the number of containment zones in the district has seen a three-fold increase between May 30 and June 9. Now, about
Amid the rising Covid-19 cases in Ghaziabad, the number of containment zones in the district has seen a three-fold increase between May 30 and June 9. Now, about 10-11 lakh people are under the containment zones, health officials said.
The officials also said that the number of containment zones in Ghaziabad may rise as June has seen a sudden spike in number of Covid-19 cases.
According to the health department data, the district on May 30 had 72 containment zones, including 65 under category 1 and seven under category 2. The figure till June 9 has shot up to 217, with 188 containment zones under category 1 and 29 under category 2.
“The number of containment zones will rise as some cases are coming up in new localities ever since the economic activities have opened up. Our teams are trying to take up sanitization, surveillance and random sampling in containment zones in order to prevent any spread, and also to find our if there is any possibility of community spread,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.
Till May 31, the district had a total of 305 Covid-19 cases, which jumped to 581 on Friday with the addition of 16 new cases. Of 581 positive cases, 368 patients have been discharged from different hospitals and 19 have lost their lives, resulting in 194 active cases in the district. The total sampling count as on June 11 was 12,710, the officials said.
The officials said that five cases were reported from Garima Garden in Sahibabad, two from Indirapuram, and one each from Vaishali and Khoda, among other localities.
According to the officials, they have also taken up about 1,000 random sampling which also included pool samples in different containment zones, but no Covid-19 positive cases have emerged.
“This shows that there is no community spread as such, and containment exercises have yielded results. There is hardly any instance where cases have re-emerged in containment zones. The areas are contained for a period of 14 to 21 days and released if there are no fresh cases,” Dr Gupta added.
If any area has one Covid-19 case, it is notified as the category 1 containment zone with a radius of 250 metres. The category-2 zones are the ones where there is incidence of more than one positive case. In such zones, area of 500-metre radius is under containment, with additional 250 metres of buffer area. The majority of activities, including movement of residents, in containment zones are restricted (except for essential supplies).
According to the officials, the majority of containment zones (about 85-90%) are in city areas, and of these most are in trans-Hindon localities of Sahibabad, Khoda, Vaishali, Indirapuram, Vasundhara and Jhandapur, among others.
The Sahibabad area, that includes localities like Shalimar Garden, Lajpat Nagar, Rajendra Nagar, Mohan Nagar and Bhopra among others, has 19 category 1 containment zones, while Vaishali has 13 category 1 containment zones and three category 2.
Vasundhara has 16 category 1 zones and one category 2 zone. Indirapuram has eight areas under category 1 while three under category 2. The Khoda locality has the highest 30 category 1 zones and two category 2 zones.
According to the health officials, they are taking up sealing of 20 areas and de-sealing of about 13 areas on an average per day.
Colonel (retired) TP Tyagi, president of flat owners’ federation, said, “The containment zones will now rise and it becomes vital that there should be no delay in sealing and de-sealing the areas. Otherwise, local residents will face issues. Likewise, the sampling activities should also be scaled up to prevent the spread of Covid-19.”
Meanwhile, UP health department officials on Friday said that surveillance activities across the state have been taken up through which 892,214 households with a population of about 4.54 crore were surveyed.
“A number of people in the state have won the battle against Covid-19 and have been discharged. We would request them to act as volunteer and spread awareness in society about measures which need to be taken up for fighting Coronavirus,” said Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’s principal secretary (health).
He said that the recovery rate in UP is about 60.31%.
The Ghaziabad district on Friday recorded 16 fresh Covid-19 positive cases and the final tally till Friday stood at total of 581 cases. These included 368 discharged from different hospitals, 194 active cases and 19 deaths so far.
The officials said that five cases were reported from Garima Garden in Sahibabad, two from Indirapuram, one each from Vaishali and Khoda among other localities.
