200 from Noida slum taken to quarantine facility in one go

Snehil Sinha & Shikha Salaria | TNN | Apr 8, 2020, 06:34 IST

Health workers during a door-to-door survey for Covid-19 symptoms in Noida. (PTI Photo)

NOIDA: Scores of policemen and health care workers in hazmat suits descended on a slum cluster near Sector 5 on Tuesday night and put around 200 local residents in a fleet of ambulances that took them to a quarantine centre in Greater Noida.
It was the first cluster containment exercise of this scale in Noida, which is a Covid-19 hotspot in UP. The residents of the slum, who were put through thermal screening and checked for symptoms of the novel coronavirus infection, have been identified as contacts of four Covid-19 patients who had earlier tested positive from here. One of them worked as the domestic help of another Covid-19 patient, an employee of Cease Fire. The infection chain from the fire safety equipment company so far accounts for 39 of Noida’s 58 confirmed cases.
Health department officials said around 200 people from the JJ colony were taken to Galgotias Institute of Engineering and Technology in Knowledge Park 2, Greater Noida. Officials confirmed there were no new positive cases in the area and the exercise was a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the viral infection.
The four residents of this JJ colony tested positive on April 3. The patients included a domestic help and her family members. “During the sealing and sanitisation exercise, we realised it is a very dense locality and social distancing could not have been possible. As a precaution, we have tried to contain all neighbouring families at one place. We will monitor them for the next few days and test those who show symptoms. We will take a call in the next two to three days depending on their health, whether they need to kept in quarantine or not,” said Narendra Bhooshan, Noida’s nodal officer for Covid-19 response.
District magistrate Suhas LY told TOI, “There is no new case, but it is a precautionary measure. There are about 35-40 families who lived close to the family that was found positive earlier.”
ACP Arun Kumar Singh said that ambulances had been called and the decision to quarantine the residents taken after they were found to be living within a radius of 10 metres of the house of the family that had tested positive on April 3.