Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said the exercise of intensifying the lockdown by sealing hotspots in 15 districts should be replicated in the remaining 25 districts, where coronavirus positive cases have been found in Uttar Pradesh. However, the state government has not issued any written orders in this regard. Rather, district administration officials have been asked to take suitable steps at their own level.
All hotspots in 15 districts were sealed on Wednesday/Thursday night till April 15 morning.
Barring medical teams, sanitisation workers and those deployed for home delivery, no one is being allowed to move about in these areas.
“We have identified hotspots in 15 districts where six or more coronavirus positive cases have been reported. The district administration there has been asked to allow only the teams of medical and health, sanitization and doorstep delivery. Now, 410 Corona positive cases have been reported in 40 districts. All these districts, where even one corona positive case has been found, should cordon off the hotspot and implement the restrictions,” the chief minister said.
He was addressing district magistrates and district police chiefs in a video conference on Thursday.
“No one should be under any doubt. We have to check the spread of the coronavirus. I have surveyed some areas and got some survey reports from 15 districts, where intensified lockdown was ordered on Wednesday. Officers have been found careless in some districts….This carelessness can be dangerous for you and people in your districts. You need to implement the restrictions in every district, where even a single case has been found,” the chief minister said.
{{/usCountry}}“No one should be under any doubt. We have to check the spread of the coronavirus. I have surveyed some areas and got some survey reports from 15 districts, where intensified lockdown was ordered on Wednesday. Officers have been found careless in some districts….This carelessness can be dangerous for you and people in your districts. You need to implement the restrictions in every district, where even a single case has been found,” the chief minister said.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, while reviewing the situation, Adityanath asked officers to ramp up surveillance in hotspots by deploying a magistrate for each sector there.
“Do not allow any movement other than those of medical, sanitisation, and home delivery teams,” he was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office.
“Increase surveillance in the sealed areas,” he said.
Among the 15 districts, Agra has 22 hotspots, Ghaziabad 13, Gautam Buddha Nagar 12, Kanpur 12, Varanasi 4, Shamli 4, Meerut 7, Bareilly 1, Bulandshahr 3, Basti 3, Firozabad 3, Saharanpur 4, Maharajganj 4, Sitapur 1 and Lucknow 12.
Adityanath also said: “Establish contact with each quarantined person in the state, using the 1076 helpline and ask about their health and well-being.”
Talking to top officers engaged in Covid-19 management, he also asked them to ensure that no one stepped out without a face-mask or face cover, and at the same time encourage people to download ‘Arogya’ app on their smartphones to help them keep safe from Covid-19.
The chief minister also asked officers to do an audit of ventilators at government hospitals and medical colleges.
“Get an audit of the ventilators done, keep them functional. Ensure availability of PPE (personal protection equipment) kit, infrared thermometers, isolation beds, quarantine beds, sanitisers, N-95 masks and triple-layer masks at these hospitals,” he said.
The chief minister sought cleanliness drives in cities and villages. He asked for updates on the status of manufacturing of PPE kits, ventilators and masks in the state.
Chief secretary RK Tiwari; infrastructure and industry development commissioner Alok Tandon, additional chief secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi, additional chief secretary (Finance) Sanjeev Mittal and several other officers attended the meeting.
Additional chief secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi said the chief minister asked officials to prepare details of the population, as well as all the houses located in the 105 hotspots. Health and police teams would prepare a list of coronavirus positive and suspicious people residing in the hotspots, he said.
The state government has called upon Tabligi Jamaat members to voluntarily come out of the houses in which they have taken shelter. People in whose houses the Jamaatis are staying should inform the administration, the senior bureaucrat said. The Tabligi Jammat members will be sent to quarantine centres, Awasthi said.
The chief minister also directed the DGP and the home department to prepare a list of magistrates and policemen deployed in hotspots. Awasthi said strict action would be taken against people who violated the complete lockdown.
Since the nationwide lockdown was enforced on March 25, the UP police filed 12,236 cases and registered FIRs against 39,857 people, he said. The police checked one crore vehicles across the state and collected Rs 5.61 crore as penalty from the violators, the additional chief secretary said.