Capital’s first containment zone fully cut off by admn
NEW DELHI: It was a busy day for Suraj Singh Pradhan as he fielded calls from a wide range of people in his slum neighbourhood in South Moti Bagh, which has emerged as city’s first coronavirus containment zone beyond the two cluster hot spots of Dilshad Garden and Nizamuddin.
Pradhan told HT on the phone that as per instructions of the district administration he is now the conduit for all communication between local sin the slum and the government machinery after one of its residents—a contractual sanitation worker at the AIIMS Trauma Centre—tested positive for C ovid -19 on Saturday. While he was admitted to the Ram Man oh ar Lohia Hospital, his family was shifted to a quarantine centre in Chhattarpur.
The community leader’ s phone rang off the hook on Sunday. While fellow area dwellers, now quarantined at home, called Pradhan to arrange for milk, vegetables and other essentials, the police called intermittent ly to ask if locals were adhering to the lock down and sanitation workers called to check if there were any disinfectants left from the batch received in the morning.
The development has left residents anxious about the possibility of community spread, several of whom spoke with HT over the phone.
Rishiraj Pal, a20-y ear-old resident of the slum, said the fear in the slum was palpable.
“Policemen are patrolling the area round the clock ready to th rash people spotted roaming the streets. But more than that, we are scared of the infection. We don’t know if staying home would actually protect us. But what else can we do,” he said.
Within hours of the result being declared, three out off our connectingroutes to the slum from the Ring Road, the South Mo ti Bagh market and inter connected lanes that lead to the South Campus of the University of Delhi were blocked using trucks.
HT went to the neighbourhood on Sunday till the permissible limits set by the police and district administration.
An area of around 1 sqkm was turned into a containment zone with a strict er version of the ongoing lock down imposed here.
All shops, including those selling essentials, were closed, san it is at ion workers were seen spraying disinfectants at regular intervals and door-to-door drives were conducted twice a day by government officials to check if any of the residents of the slum had developed any flu-like symptoms, said a senior officer in Delhi government’s revenue department.
“The residents have been asked to stay inside their homes and call the beat staff, local police station, or hunger helpline over the phone if they need food, ration or other essential items. The other option is to call their community leader (Pradhan), who can further send the message across. Arrangements have been made to get the essentials delivered at the slum so the residents do not have to venture out ,” said deputy commissioner of police( southwest) Dev en der Ar ya.
“About 15 health staffers used a tanker of 15,000 litres of diluted sodium hypo clo rite to san it is et he area,” said a senior official of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).
THE CONTAINMENT PLAN
As per the “containment plan” on the Union health ministry’ s website, any movement has been prohibitedwithin a containment zone to prevent local transmission of Covid-19.
The size of the containment zone, as suggested by the guideline, is directly proportional to the populationdensity of the cluster in question and the scale of the outbreak.
In the case of South Mo ti Bag h’ s, 1,000 families live in the affected slum and its periphery, while its “buffer zone” includes another slum, aG urudwa ra, a temple, a 247 petrol pump and a market.