11 test positive in highest single day spike, Khandsa Mandi shut till May 8

Eleven more cases of the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) were confirmed—the highest spike in one day—on Monday, the day economic activity resumed in the district

Eleven more cases of the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) were confirmed—the highest spike in one day—on Monday, the day economic activity resumed in the district after 40 days. Majority among those who tested positive are vegetable sellers and wholesale dealers at Khandsa Mandi, which has been shut till May 8.

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On Monday night, the Haryana State Agriculture and Marketing Board issued an order stating no activity will take place in the mandi till Friday. Health officials said the area will be sanitised and more samples will be taken from those who came in contact with the positive persons at the mandi. They, however, said it would be difficult to trace those people who bought vegetables from the primary contacts.

Out of the 11 new positive cases, nine were vegetable sellers and wholesale dealers at Khandsa Mandi. Of these, seven had contact with people in Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi and two had contacts with people in Nasik and West Bengal. Other cases are from Sector 80 and Sector 12, including the daughter-in-law of the man who committed suicide on April 29.

With this, Gurugram’s tally of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus touched 84 and the district, an orange zone, now has more cases of Covid-19 than any other affected districts in Haryana; Faridabad has 75 cases, Sonepat 73 and Jhajjar 56.

State health officials, however, said the numbers are increasing due to increased targeted sampling and testing in Gurugram compared to other districts.

TARGETTED SAMPLING

Last week, the district health department conducted contact tracing of over 1,656 people at the Khandsa Mandi and took 128 samples. Sampling was done after cases surfaced in Jhajjar and Sonepat with links to Azadpur Mandi—Asia’s largest wholesale market of fruits and vegetables in Delhi which has reported 17 Covid-19 cases till now. Over 1,277 samples have been collected from Jhajjar Mandi, 315 from Fatehabad Mandi and 470 from Rohtak, among other district mandis.

“We are aggressively doing targeted sampling in the district by covering people in vegetable mandis, media professionals, health care workers, police personnel and others in government departments. We have intensified the testing in Gurugram compared to other Haryana districts. Gurugram accounts for 18% of the total testing done in the state,” additional chief secretary (health) Rajeev Arora said.

As a part of targeted sampling, the health team has done RT-PCR tests of over 310 people suspected of having contracted Covid-19 in Gurugram. Across the state, 6,825 people have been tested, of which 54 vegetable sellers, 12 health workers, 4 media persons and 5 policemen tested positive for the coronavirus disease.

“In Gurugram, first there were cases with travel history, then it was Tablighi Jamaat attendees and now cases are increasing as we are doing targeted sampling of different groups who have high exposure to now locally positive cases or contaminated areas. Therefore, with targeted sampling asymptomatic cases are coming up. This would help us in breaking the chain of transmission and containing the infection,” Arora said.

CONTAINMENT ZONE

The district administration, on Monday, increased the number of containment zones from 11 to 13 in Gurugram block.

To tackle the situation, the health department has set aside 100-bed ESIC hospital, 300-bed SGT Medical College, 500-bed Medeor hospital in Manesar and 20-bed Park Hospital for Covid-19 cases.

“We have enough beds for Covid-19 cases. Sixteen private hospitals are also empanelled to provide treatment,” chief medical officer Dr Jaswant Singh Punia said.

According to him, till now, 6,766 samples have been tested in Gurugram, out of which 6,259 tested negative, while results are awaited of 423. Of the 84 positive cases, 49 have been discharged while 35 are undergoing treatment at ESIC Hospital and SGT Medical College. Though the Central government has allowed home isolation, Punia said they are not allowing it in the district with a fear that it would cause infection to spread.

CLASSIFICATION

Despite being an orange zone, where cases are less than red zones such as Faridabad and Sonepat, the rise in numbers has set the alarm bells ringing for the state and district officials. The concern is also due to the relaxation given in the orange zone under Lockdown 3.0.

A senior official in the state government, privy to the matter said, “Surveillance, testing rate and doubling rate of cases has been the criteria set by the Central government to designate a district red, orange or green zone. We have directed health teams and deputy commissioners to do aggressive contact tracing to identify symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. However, our concern is also to restart the industries.”