E-Paper
Rajasthan’s Bikaner turns to ‘orange’ zone from ‘red’ with 3-layer Covid-19 tracking
On April 3, 2020, the first case was reported in the district which later increased to 38 cases in total out of which 36 have now recovered and discharged from the hospitals.
A month back, Rajasthan’s Bikaner was in Covid-19 ‘red’ zone but within few days the local administration turned the tide in their favour and has turned Bikaner into ‘orange’ zone by using a three-layer tracking system. The district is left with only one active case now.
On April 3, 2020, the first case was reported in the district which later increased to 38 cases in total out of which 36 have now recovered and discharged from the hospitals.
Those discharged from the hospitals have been sent into quarantine again for observation. One patient had died during the initial days. Among them, 14 patients have been released from these centres as well.
Also read: Post-Covid-19, the world will change. Here are 7 ways how this could happen
“Right after the first case, micro-planning for teams was done by giving clearly demarcated areas for conducting a survey with one supervisor for every 10 survey teams. The survey teams were trained regarding COVID/ILI symptoms, checking persons having foreign travel history and prioritizing population affected in the disease epicentre,” Kumar Pal Gautam, district collector, Bikaner said.
“We made a three-layer contact tracking list in which the first list had the people who were in direct contact with the patient. Second list had contacts of these people and the third list was contacts of people on the second list. All of these people were sent in institutional quarantine and were tested within two hours,” Gautam added.
“The effort of the local administration came in handy as the total number of cases, in the beginning, was only from five localities. “The people belonging to the areas under curfew were screened nearly five times to make sure that not even a slightest chance is missed and people with severe ILI (influenza-like illness) symptoms were tested. All the results came out to be negative. Except one, all the positive cases have been discharged from the hospital and have been sent to quarantine centres for another check-up and kept in strict vigil. Nearly 14 people have been discharged from the quarantine centres as well,” informed the District Magistrate.
“Notably, the containment efforts came out to be successful after the strict quarantine within 2 hours,” added the Bikaner collector.
Gautam further said that to contain the virus, 175 people were kept in quarantine centres and more than 18,000 people were put in strict home quarantine.
“A team of 60 officials meticulously tracks and works on the three-layer contact list. This was the biggest single unit that worked round-the-clock and tracked individuals falling under contact. Everyone was tracked, quarantined and then if required, tested,” said Gautam.
While speaking on the availability of the essentials, the district collector informed that the teams are continuously delivering the products in containment areas and there has been no shortage of any item in the district.
“Following the ‘protocol’ of the election, sector magistrates were also deployed along with area magistrates. Dairy products and essential goods were delivered directly to the houses and everything was being taken care of at a rigorous level,” said the district collector.
Notably, luxury hotels in the district were spotted and listed as quarantine centres and every patient had one person to look after his/her daily needs, meals and everything else. Every individual placed in the duty of the patients who were tested positive had a duty to look after the patient on one-to-one basis. The process helped in extra care of the patients and helped them to recover well. 34 out of 36 cases were from the same cluster and 28 from the same family. Nearly, 111 contacts were sent to isolation after thorough tracing.
