Urban areas of Ghaziabad, Noida back in Covid-19 red zone

The red zone categorisation was decided on the number of parametres like total active cases, active cases per lakh of population, rate of doubling of cases, fatality rate, testing ratio and positive sample rate, said Ghaziabad’s chief medical officer.

The Uttar Pradesh government has issued directions and categorised urban areas of Ghaziabad district under the red zone on late on Wednesday night. The government has also listed the urban areas of Gautam Budh Nagar, Meerut, Agra and Kanpur City under the red zone.

Barricading in a coronavirus containment zone in Dasna, Ghaziabad, on Wednesday. (Sakim Ali/HT Photo)

“The directions came late Wednesday on night and the urban areas of Ghaziabad district are now in red zone. As per earlier classification by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the district was under orange zone. So now, the city areas have slipped into red zone where activities will be allowed but they will be restricted,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.

The urban areas in Ghaziabad include localities of Kaushambi, Vaishali, Indirapuram, Vasundhra, Sahibabad, Raj Nagar Extension, Crossings Republik, Raj Nagar, Kavi Nagar among others.

Under the new guidelines issued by Minstry of Home Affairs on May 17, states and union territories (UTs) were given powers to delineate red, green and orange zones while taking into consideration the parametres shared by the health ministry.

The zones can be a district, or a municipal corporation/municipality or even smaller administrative units such as sub-divisions, etc, as decided by respective states and UTs.

Within the red and orange zones, containment and buffer zones will be demarcated by the local authorities after taking into consideration the guidelines of the health ministry.

“The red zone for Ghaziabad’s urban area was decided on the number of parametres like total active cases, active cases per lakh of population, rate of doubling of cases, fatality rate, testing ratio and positive sample rate. As per our assessment, we have three containment zones of Khoda, Jhandapur in Sahibabad and Vaishali Sector 1 where there are more positive cases and precaution is needed in these areas,” CMO Dr Gupta added.

Under the containment zones, only essential activities are allowed with stricter perimetre control. No movement of persons is allowed except for medical emergencies and for maintaining essential supplies.

“In the containment zones we have deployed teams which are taking up surveillance activities like door to door surveys, sampling and sanitization etc,” Dr Gupta added.

Till Wednesday night, the tally of the Covid-19 positive patients in Ghaziabad stood at 196 with 161 of these discharged from different hospitals.

The number of active cases now stands at 33.