Civic body knocks at the door of high-rises

Trend has reversed with more cases being detected in posh gated complexes than slums

Under its revised strategy to contai n COVID19 in some of the posh locations of South Mumbai, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) D ward commenced door-to-door screening of residents to check for symptoms associated with it. Those wi th co-morbid conditions will be gi ven special attention and swabs wou ld be coll ected in suspected cases, the as sistant municipal commissioner of th e ward said. According to the ward officials, though the process is time-consuming, it will be greatly helpful in the early det ection of cas es. "The strategy helped us at a time when slum areas were r eporting a higher number of cases compared to high-rises. However, the trend has reversed since June. Cluster cases have been found amo ng staff and employees working in high-rises. Therefore, teams are aggressively conducting door-todoor screening in all residential buildings in the ward,” said Prashant Gaikwad, assistant municipal commissioner of D ward. Civic body teams wil l also chec k the oxygen levels in senior citi zens.

Gaikwad added, "Door-to-door screening helps in detecting cases early, which wil l give us a head star t in tr ying to contai n the spread of the virus. We will then be in a position to provide earl y treatment. Recovery will be easier and many l ives will be saved too."

The civic body has al so set up a C OVID-19 testing centre at th e civic-run Jagannath Shankar Seth ( JSS) near Nana Cho wk in Grant road, where r esidents having symptoms can get tested for f ree.

With the rel axation of the lockdown under Mission Begin Again earlier in June, COVID19 cases started maki ng a comeback i n the high rises in D ward. BMC’s D Ward, which constitutes areas like Mal abar Hill, Gamdevi, Peddar Road and Nepean Sea Road, amongst others, began witnessing a sudden spike in cases in its hi gh rises, as residential societies allowed entr y to house help s and drivers.

Fearing the spread of CO VID-19 amongst drivers, security guards and even house helps, BMC had suggested housing societies across Mumbai to ban t heir entry in the premises. Some housing s ocieties followed suit. However many affluent societies and bungalows never stopped house helps and continued to t ake their ser vices.

D ward initially had patients who h ad travelled abroad in the past coup le of months or had come in contact with relatives or acquaintances having foreign travel histor y. This trend then g radually changed. There had b een cases where drivers and security guards contracted the disease through their employers. Now, the trend seems to have reversed again and the virus has once ag ain found i ts way i nto the high-rises.