UP rolls out guidelines for containment zones, directs for strict surveillance

Ghaziabad: Amid the rise in Covid-19 cases in the state, the Uttar Pradesh government has issued fresh guidelines for creating containment zones and directed for bringing them under tight surveillance

Ghaziabad: Amid the rise in Covid-19 cases in the state, the Uttar Pradesh government has issued fresh guidelines for creating containment zones and directed for bringing them under tight surveillance. The guidelines said that an area within a radius of 25 metres will be a containment zone in case of emergence of single Covid-19 case while 50-metre radius area will be a containment zone in case of two or more cases and will be considered as a cluster.

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The new directions will be applicable for all 75 districts, including Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar, and also has details about the containment guidelines for high-rises.

The directions issued on Saturday night by UP chief secretary RK Tiwari said that an estimated 20 houses (in 25-metre radius area) will be contained and put under surveillance in case of emergence of a single case while 60 houses (in 50-metre area) are likely to fall under zones having more than one cases.

For the high-rises, the guidelines said that in case of emergence of one Covid-19 case, the entire floor will be contained while the entire tower will be contained if multiple cases are detected.

As per the previous directions in October 2020 for containment zones in high-rises, one floor was to be contained in case of one positive case and respective floors were to be sealed in case more than one floors received positive cases.

The latest guidelines have also defined that the containment area will be removed from the list of containment zones if it has no new case for 14 days from the date of sample collection of the last positive patient.

“As of now, the guidelines have not detailed any restriction on movement of people in and out of containment zones, but directed for strict surveillance. We will get the guidelines implemented at the earliest after meeting with our departments. Also, for public places like hotels, restaurants, gyms, clubs and others, we are considering strict regulation if they are found violating Covid protocols,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate, GB Nagar.

Ghaziabad officials said that the teams will be deployed in containment zones and conduct door-to-door surveillance to find out suspected cases.

“Also, we scan for people having Covid-like symptoms like cough, cold, fever, etc. All the details of such persons will be sent to the health department and there will be 100% testing of suspected cases,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate of Ghaziabad.

“The guidelines have stressed on surveillance and testing. For testing, we have chalked out six dedicated teams for containment zones while we have one dedicated team each for every containment zone to carry out surveillance activities,” Pandey added.

The guidelines also said that sample collection of suspected cases must be taken up within 24 hours and the local administration, on the basis of recommendation of the chief medical officer, can also take up more activities of surveillance based on local conditions.

In his October 2020 directions, the UP chief secretary had said that micro containment zones would be defined in case one house has one or more Covid cases. It also said that in addition to the house having Covid patient, one house each on either side will also be included in the micro containment zone where testing was directed to find out cases of infection.

In case of cluster where multiple houses had positive cases, the directions said that containment area was to be extended to one house adjacent to the last affected house.

Till last year before the micro containment zones came into picture, the containment zones had strict perimeter control with sealing of entry/exit points with the help of tapes or sticks. The entry of residents was also restricted expect in cases of medical emergencies.