Delhi’s Mehrauli on alert after vegetable vendor tests positive

As on Thursday evening, 2376 people have tested positive for the contagious disease in Delhi. While 50 people have died so far, 808 have recovered, as per the latest Delhi government data.

A contact tracing nightmare is staring at district officials in south Delhi’s Mehrauli who were sent into a tizzy on Thursday evening after a vegetable vendor who used to roam around from one block to another with his cart tested positive for Covid-19.

A medical worker checks a sample at a health camp organised for media personnel. (Sonu Mehta/HT photo)

Vegetables are listed as essentials and the vendor operated across Mehrauli amid the ongoing lockdown. As on Thursday evening, 2376 people have tested positive for the contagious disease in Delhi. While 50 people have died so far, 808 have recovered, as per the latest Delhi government data.

Soon after the test report came out, officials from the sub divisional magistrate’s office and civil volunteers were roped in to patrol localities in Mehrauli zone and make announcements on loudspeakers to alert the residents about the situation and ask them to remain indoors, a senior government official said.

“The vendor is admitted in a hospital now. His wife and children have been quarantined and they will be tested at the earliest. Contact tracing will be the biggest challenge in this case because he regularly procured vegetables from the Okhla market, frequented the Mehrauli market and used his cart to travel from block to block selling vegetables. Public announcement is underway in the entire zone,” said BM Mishra, district magistrate (south).

He said the vegetable seller lives in a slum in Mehrauli and contact tracing in the next few hours would help the government decide if that has to be sealed and declared a containment zone. “The whole of Mehrauli will now be under stricter surveillance. Any decision on more containment zones will depend on out assessment,” Mishra added.

Earlier on Thursday, the area around A3 Lake View apartment in Mehrauli was notified as a containment zone after a nurse working with a south Delhi government hospital – with no dedicated Covid ward – tested positive the previous day. On Thursday, her father-in-law tested positive too, said a senior government official.

The official said, “They are a family of nine members of which two have tested positive and five are symptomatic. The other two are children below 10 years age. They all have been quarantined and they will be tested at the earliest.”

More than 200 people live in the apartment but there are clusters around it with high population density, another official in the health department said.

Other than Lake View apartment in South Delhi’s Mehrauli, two more containment zones were notified in the Capital on Thursday - one in Raj Nagar II in Dwarka and Shahdara’s Dayanand Vihar – taking the total number of such “red zones” to 92. These are entirely sealed lanes and blocks subjected to strict surveillance, health checks, sanitisation, tests and and doorstep delivery of essentials so that residents do not have to venture out.

Earlier, a pizza delivery person associated with an outlet in Malviya Nagar had tested Covid positive, following which 72 families were directed to go for home quarantine. The test results of the 72 have come negative. The delivery person is a resident of Savitri Vihar in South Delhi’s Malviya Nagar. The area round his residence was cordoned off as a containment zone last week.

A senior official said, tracing contacts for the pizza person was easier because orders he had delivered were recorded with the food outlet. He was part of mobile application-based food delivery aggregator services too. “But there are no records when it comes to a vegetable vendor who operates freely in an area,” the official added.