A daily wage migrant laborer walks across a closed wholesale market in the old quarters of Delhi during a nation wide lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus, in New Delhi, India, Thursday, April 30, 2020. India says it has achieved tremendous gains and improvement in curbing the coronavirus infections through a stringent lockdown imposed across the country five weeks ago. The government recently allowed reopening of neighborhood shops in cities and towns and resumption of manufacturing and farming activity in rural India to help millions of poor people who lost work.
All major metro cities across the country will remain as 'red zones' after the second spell of lockdown ends on May 3. These cities include -- Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. The union health ministry has written to all the states asking them to demarcate the containment zones and restrict the movement.
Health Secretary Preeti Sudan, in a letter to chief secretaries of all states and union territories, has mentioned a list of 130 red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones across the country.
Maharashtra, which has over 10,000 coronavirus cases has the maximum red zones followed by Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Here's what we know about the Center's plan post-May 3
- Centre has formulated a list of 733 zones including -- 130 red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones.
- Centre has asked the states to create a buffer zone around the containment zones as a safety measure to eliminate any chances of virus spreading from one area to another.
- Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have the highest number of containment zones (19 and 14), followed by Tamil Nadu (12) and Delhi (11).
- Delhi's suburbs -- Faridabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida, Greater Noida), Merut have been classified as red zones, while Gurugram and Ghaziabad have ben classified as orange zones.
- All of Mumbai's suburban areas have been classified as red zones.
- Bengaluru urban and rural areas, Mysuru have been classified as red zones
The health ministry has asked stringent for stringent measures to be taken in these areas. As per the health ministry, the containment zones in these districts have been delineated based on
- Mapping of cases and contacts
- Geographical dispersion of cases and contacts
- The area with well-demarcated perimeter
- Enforceability
"Depending on the above factors, for urban areas -- residential colony/mohallas / municipal wards or police-station area / municipal zones/towns et. as appropriate can be designated as containment zones. Similarly, for rural areas -- villages/clusters of villages or group of police stations/gram panchayat/blocks etc can be appropriated as designated containment zones," the health ministry letter to the chief secretaries of various states read.
Further, the health ministry mentioned the actions that need to be taken in these areas as a part of the containment action plan. These actions are
- Stringent perimeter control
- Establishing clear entry and exit points
- No movement except for medical emergencies and essential goods and services
- No unchecked influx of population
- People transiting to be recorded and followed through IDSP
- Active search for cases through house to house surveillance by special teams formed for the purpose
- Testing of all cases as per sampling guidelines
- Contact tracing
- Clinical management of all confirmed cases
Also Read | Delhi-NCR: Noida, Faridabad, Meerut to remain red zones post May 3; Gurugram, Ghaziabad orange zoned
