Covid cloud: Capital adds 800 red zones in just 6 days

New Delhi: The number of Covid-19 containment zones in Delhi touched 1,506 on Saturday, 800 having been added in the past six days and 200 of these in just the last two days. The South district has the most sealed zones with 307, followed by 194 in North and 170 in New Delhi. North East district has the fewest with 27, with 31 in Central district, according to a containment zone summary prepared on March 25.
A fortnight ago, the number of containment zones had come down to 488. But as the cases of new Covid started rising again, areas began to be sealed in an effort to contain the spread of the infection. Unlike last year, however, a containment zone is a much smaller space, configured in a manner to inconvenience the minimum number of people. A government official explained that such micro demarcations increased effectiveness in managing containment zones and surveillance efforts.


So far, 16,986 containment zones have been created in the city, of which 15,679 were reopened up to March 25. Last December saw the sharpest rise, with 2,361 red areas notified in just one month after the third Covid wave led to up to 8,500 new infection cases every day.

“All the active containment zones are sanitised and those living within them are screened for infection,” said a district official. A health department official added that each district was tracing 30 to 40 contacts for each individual testing positive and the containment zone was the primary focus in the tracing exercise.
Meanwhile, health minister Satyendar Jain appealed to people not to ignore masks. “A direct correlation can be seen in the changing weather and the simultaneous increase in the number of Covid-19 cases. However, it cannot be concretely said that this is the sole reason for the surge in Covid-19 cases,” claimed Jain. “I believe we have been educated on prevention measures and we should follow these without creating a fuss.”