All Indian districts will be classified into three categories, based on the severity of impact from the novel coronavirus, by April 20, the Union Health Ministry said on Wednesday. Addressing the daily press briefing, Luv Agarwal, the joint secretary at the ministry, revealed that based on the number of infections from each district, they will be categorised in 'hotspot' areas, 'non-hotspot' areas and 'non-affected', or green zone, areas.
More than 700 Indian districts are expected to be thoroughly scrutinised on health parameters in the next few days, as part of the government's massive effort to contain the spread of the virus. Till now, a hundred and seventy districts have been classified as 'hotspots', while 207 have been zoned into 'non-hotspot' districts.
Hotspot areas are the ones that have been reporting many cases or have a high rate of growth of coronavirus infections, said Agarwal.
The government, in collaboration, with the local authorities has put a containment and cluster strategy in place to deal with the emerging infections from these areas, he said.
Agarwal said that people would be monitored for 'influenza-like illness' in these areas as well, through a clearly defined mapping procedure.
Special teams have been deployed to carry out the mapping of residents in the 'hotspot' areas, he said.
Agarwal defined the 'non-hotspot' areas as those which have reported a few coronavirus infections till date but could emerge as "potential hotspots" in the future. He said that the cluster containment plan, jointly devised the Centre and state authorities, would be in place in these areas to "break the chain" of coronavirus transmission in these areas, if it comes to that.
The third category, he said, was that of 'non-affected', or 'green zone' areas, which haven't recorded any case of now. Agarwal said that it was crucial that authorities remained in constant touch with "local communities" to check the spread of infections in these areas.
The nationwide gameplan to tackle the spread of the virus was revealed by the ministry a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of the national lockdown till May 3. "Till April 20, each district, each state will be monitored closely to see whether the lockdown is being followed. Then we can decide on relaxing the restrictions," the Prime Minister had said in his address to the nation on Tuesday.
As of April 15, India recorded a total of 11,439 coronavirus infections, resulting in 377 deaths.
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