UP seals 15 dists, Delhi cuts off 20 hotspots, toll 179
India on Wednesday reported 704 fresh cases of novel coronavirus (Covid19) in one day, taking the total figures to 5,916 cases, with 179 deaths overall.
The total number of active cases are 5,230 while 507 people have recovered from the virus so far as per covid19india.org, a crowdsourced website that updates the numbers frequently. Among those who tested positive Wednesday today is film producer Karim Morani, days after his daughter Zoa and Shaza were also found positive.
In a desperate bid to check the virus’ spread, several states have started adopting “ruthless” and stringent “cluster containment” measures like “geographic quarantine” by adopting the socalled “Bhilwara model”.
Uttar Pradesh, with 343 cases (including 11 new ones), said it would totally seal off “hotspots” in 15 districts from Wednesday midnight till April 15. People there won’t be allowed to step out of their homes for any reason, and all essentials will be home-delivered. Vehicle movement will be banned.
The hotspots include 22 clusters in Agra, 13 in Ghaziabad, 12 each in Noida and Kanpur, seven in Meerut and four each in Varanasi, Sahanaranpur and Maharajganj. Shamli, Bulandshahr, Firozabad and Basti have three hotspots each, and one each in Bareilly and Sitapur. Lucknow, the state capital, has eight major and four minor clusters.
Delhi too said it would seal 20 hotspots in areas like Nizamuddin, Sadar Bazaar, Dilshad Garden, Malviya Nagar, Sangam Vihar and Gandhi Park.
The ongoing lockdown was to end on April 14, but Punjab has already announced a statewide curfew till April 30.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot has sought a phased withdrawal, and Karnataka too wants lifting of the lockdown in districts that are free of the infection.
Maharashtra, with 1,018 cases, is still the epicentre of the virus, with the highest number of deaths (64). Three more persons tested positive for Covid in the Dharavi area of Mumbai, taking the count in the densely-populated slum to 10. Health ministry officials said a doorto door survey was being done in a 35 sq.km. area in Pune Central and Kondhwa: those with co-morbidities were being scanned to see if they contacted an infected patient.
In Rajasthan too, similar containment measures are in place in Jaipur and Jodhpur.
Several states started spraying sanitizers on roads, parks and colonies and made wearing of masks mandatory. With intense tests — 1,21,271 done so far, of which 13,345 were done on Tuesday – health officials fear the numbers will rise further and stringent containment measures need to be put in place.
“We are dealing with a huge challenge. An asymptomatic person as a carrier of the infection may pass it on to others. Hence, major behavioral changes are needed,” a senior health ministry official said.
Odisha’s coastal districts have emerged as the Covid-19 hotspots in the state with 98 per cent cases being reported from these areas. Of the 42 positives cases, coastal districts have recorded 41 cases.
The footprint of Covid19 is seen in as many as six of the nine coastal districts. While Khurda district with 34 cases has emerged as the epicentre in Odisha, other hotspot coastal districts are Puri (1), Bhadrak
(3), Jajpur (1), Kendrapada (1) and Cuttack (1).
Though Odisha has recorded only single
Covid-19 death till date, the mortality rate, however, is estimated at 2.4 per cent against the national average of 2.9 per cent. Even with a lone death till date, the state figures among the top-states in the mortality rate graph nationally.
According to official information, over 1 lakh migrant workers returned to Odisha before the lockdown started.