60 new Covid-19 cases in IIT Kharagpur; 3 IIM-C hostels are containment zones

KOLKATA: More than 60 people including students and faculty members at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kharagpur have been detected with Covid-19 since December 31.

“At least 62 people including students, professors and family members have been detected with Covid-19 between December 31 and January 2. The numbers have definitely shot up…,” said a senior official at IIT Kharagpur.

At the Indian Institute of Management campus in Calcutta about 150km from Kharagpur, three hostels have been declared as containment zones after at least 35 people tested positive in the last two to three days, officials said. Most of the Covid-19 patients have mild symptoms and have been quarantined.

“The state government has already declared three hostels - Ramanujan Hostel, Lake view Hostel and New Hostel – and the Tata Hall, where infected patients have been quarantined, as containment zones.

The four locations are among the 25 containment zones identified across 144 wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. In Howrah and North 24 Parganas, the state government has earmarked 41 locations in each district as containment zones.

“Even though the containment zone list includes slums, flats and high-end housing complexes, most of the cases were detected in upper middle-class areas. Around 80% of the cases are asymptomatic. Only 3% need hospitalization,” said Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim.

On Tuesday, West Bengal reported 9,073 new Covid-19 cases, up from the daily count of 6,078 reported on Monday. In Kolkata, 4,759 new cases were reported on Tuesday, the highest among all districts in the state. North 24 Parganas with 1,391 fresh cases came next.

Kolkata’s civic body has already urged shopkeepers in various markets not to sell products to customers coming without masks.

“The police and civic officials who are going to the markets to raise awareness have told shopkeepers that their shops would be closed down if they sell their products to customers without masks,” said Hakim.