Hotspots in Punjab, Haryana, HP and J&K down to 10
CHANDIGARH: The number of hotspots or red zones from Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh; and the union territories of Chandigarh and Ladakh were reduced to 10 from 29 on Thursday night by the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW).
The new classification of districts, as per the Union health ministry, is multi-factorial and takes into consideration the incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback. A number of existing hotspot districts, consequently, have been dropped into the orange zones and may make it to the green zone subsequently, officials said.
“It is important to ensure that we identify pockets of critical interventions for a focused management of Covid-19 at the field level,’’ said Union health secretary Preeti Sudan in an April 30 communication to the chief secretaries of the states. The fresh list of hotspots came after cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba held a video conference with chief secretaries of the states Thursday.
CLASSIFICATION CRITERIA BROAD-BASED
Broad-basing its criteria for labelling districts as red, orange and green zones, the Union health ministry categorised 18 Haryana districts into orange zones, and the remaining two in green zones. The existing hotspot districts of Nuh, Gurugram and Palwal have made it to the orange zone.
The Union health secretary said that districts were earlier designated as hotspots or red zones, orange zones and green zones primarily based on the cumulative cases reported and the doubling rate.
“Since the recovery rates have gone up, the districts are now being designated across various zones by broad-basing the criteria,’’ Sudan wrote.
“This is a dynamic list. The list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states for follow-up action in consonance with the directions issued by Union home ministry,’’ Sudan said.
STATES AT LIBERTY TO CLASSIFY RED ZONES
The Central government though has also given the liberty to the state government to designate additional red or orange zones based on the field feedback and additional analysis at the state level. But they have been asked not to relax the zonal classification of districts classified as red or orange by the Union ministry.
The Central government has emphasised that necessary action for containment be taken to break the chain of transmission of virus in both red and orange zone districts reporting confirmed cases.
NEW CRITERIA FOR CONTAINMENT ZONES
Modifying the criteria for the demarcation of containment zones, the MoHFW said that a residential colony/mohalla/municipal ward or police-station area/ municipal zones/towns can be designated as containment zones in urban areas.
The containment zones in these districts have to be delineated based on mapping of cases and contacts, geographical dispersion of cases and contacts, area with well demarcated perimeter and enforceability.
For rural areas, villages/clusters of villages or group of police stations/gram panchayats/ blocks can be designated as containment zones.
“The area should be appropriately defined by the district administration/local urban body with technical inputs from the local level,” the communication said.