Delhi now has 7 containment zones, strict protocol in place
nNEW DELHI: With the number of Covid-19 cases rising in the national capital—20 new cases were reported on Monday taking the tally to 523—the Delhi government on Monday declared three new containment areas, taking to seven, the total number of such zones in the city. More will likely be declared, a senior official said.
States have some leeway on defining such areas and according to senior officials from the Delhi health department, a containment area is declared when a bunch of cases with unclear history is reported from a locality. This is done to prevent the infection from being transmitted to other parts of the city.
Apart from the Nizamuddin Markaz, four separate containment areas have been declared in Dilshad Garden -- all with different focal patients — and one in a slum cluster in New Moti Bagh. Another containment zone was declared in the Tibetan colony in Majnu Ka Tila in March, after a
Covid-19 positive patient took a bus from there to Himachal Pradesh. A second senior Delhi government official said that the containment period for this area is almost over.
According to officials, the separate focal patients — in one Dilshad Garden case, it is unclear where the patient got the infection from — have raised fresh fears about community transmission taking place. “In hot spots some community spread may be occurring,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS and a member of the national task force on Covid-19.