Bengal govt sends expert teams to 3 hot spot districts

KOLKATA: Hooghly and South 24-Parganas have registered a sharp spike in Covid-19 cases over the past one week, turning into major concerns for the West Bengal government.

There are also the red zone districts of Kolkata, Howrah and North 24-Parganas that have set the alarm bells ringing. Out of the 1,786 cases reported till May 9, 85% of the cases were registered in these three red zone districts.

“While the number of containment zones in South 24-Parganas has shot up from one to 30 in the past one week, the number of positive Covid-19 cases in Hooghly has shot up from 40 to 71 in the last one week,” said a senior official who was not willing to be named.

The state has now decided to deploy three expert teams in the districts of North 24-Parganas, Hooghly and South 24 Parganas to identify gaps in the containment zones.

“The team will look into quality control and supervise the teams that are already deployed in containment areas. Increase in containment areas and rise in Covid figures in a district are an indication that there could be some gaps in containment zones. The expert teams will try to find out these gaps,” said the official.

Meanwhile, a case has been filed against Union minister Babul Supriyo for allegedly sharing a ‘fake’ photo of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s brother, Kartik Banerjee, drinking with state chief secretary Rajiva Sinha. Banerjee, however, has refuted the allegation.