Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, a designated hotspot among the 123 Covid-19 districts with large outbreak, may become the first to transition from red to green zone as it reported no new confirmed case for a week.
The last Covid-19 case in the district was reported on April 9 after a gap of five days.
The Union health ministry identified 170 districts as hotspots on Wednesday, classifying them under Red Zone, 207 districts as non-hotspot or White Zone, and 353 unaffected districts as Green Zone. The 170 hotspots were further categorised into hotspot districts with large outbreak (for 15 cases or more) and those with clusters (for fewer than 15 cases).
Follow coronavirus latest update here.
According to a letter sent by Union health secretary Preeti Sudan to chief secretaries, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times, there are 12 hotspot districts, including Bhilwara, in Rajasthan. The textile town is among the hotspots with large outbreaks because it has reported 28 cases so far.
The first case in Bhilwara was reported on March 19. In the next 14 days, the district emerged as one of the biggest Covid-19 hotpots in the country with 26 cases. Among those infected were three doctors and 14 nursing staff and other health workers of Brijesh Banger Memorial Hospital, a private institution, in Bhilwara.
{{/usCountry}}The first case in Bhilwara was reported on March 19. In the next 14 days, the district emerged as one of the biggest Covid-19 hotpots in the country with 26 cases. Among those infected were three doctors and 14 nursing staff and other health workers of Brijesh Banger Memorial Hospital, a private institution, in Bhilwara.
{{/usCountry}}“We will complete the second 14-day cycle on Friday. If we can stay without a new case until May 15, we will become Covid-19 free district,” said Rajendra Bhatt, Bhilwara district collector, who has been in the forefront of implementing what has come to be known as the Bhilwara model of ‘ruthless containment’.
The letter from Sudan said a district could move from the Red to the Green Zone if it does not report any case for 28 days, and vice-versa. If there’s no new confirmed case in a Red Zone district for 14 days, it will transition into the White Zone, a middle zone between the red and the green zones.
Districts that together contribute 80% of the cases in a state or those that have a doubling rate of less than four days have been marked as Red Zones. Rajasthan’s capital, Jaipur, also figures in the list with more than 480 cases until 9am Thursday. The state’s tally is 1,101.
Rajasthan with 12 hotspot districts is among the top 5 states; the other states are Tamil Nadu (22), Andhra Pradesh (16), Maharashtra (14) and Uttar Pradesh (13).
The Bhilwara collector said the administration has extended the second phase of curfew in the city until April 20. Curfew was first imposed on April 3 and was in force until April 13. In the first phase, there were no exemptions to anyone and all essentials were home-delivered by the administration.
After Jaipur, Bhilwara is testing most samples in the state. So far, about 5,000 samples have been tested from Bhilwara which is about 8,000 less from the number of samples tested from Jaipur.
Out of the 28 cases in Bhilwara, only one is in hospital; two have died and the rest have been discharged after recovery, said Bhatt. “We have put 55 people in government quarantine facilities and 9,819 are in home quarantine,” he added.