Women line up outside a bank at Dilshad Garden on Wednesday. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
On the day it announced complete sealing of 20 containment zones across the city, Delhi government said 93 people, who had attended the gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz, tested positive. The total number of cases in Delhi has now reached 669.
On Wednesday, a 44-year-old head constable of the Delhi Police, posted with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO), also tested positive. A resident of Rohini Sector 16, he has been shifted to Lok Nayak Hospital. His wife and two children have been advised home quarantine as they were asymptomatic.
According to police, the man was working at Terminal-3 of the IGI Airport and was sent on leave on March 31 after he said he was feeling unwell. “He was advised home quarantine. On Wednesday, at 3.41 pm, a PCR call was received that the test reports, that he got today, were positive,” said an officer said.
Authorities are trying to ascertain how he contracted the infection and also advised his two colleagues to quarantine themselves at home. The entire colony has been cordoned off.
Gurgaon, meanwhile, saw 10 new cases on Wednesday. All of them had attended the Tablighi Jamaat gathering, officials said. The district reported the highest number of cases in a single day so far, taking the total number of cases to 30. Nine people have recovered so far. Faridabad, meanwhile, saw seven cases.
While Faridabad and Nuh have identified containment and buffer zones that have been sealed, Gurgaon has constituted teams to conduct door-to-door surveys to find potential new cases. In Gurgaon, officials said 203 teams have been formed at the gram panchayat level to carry out these surveys. Each team includes the sarpanch, panch, gram sachiv, as well as an anganwadi and ASHA worker.
In Nuh, the district administration Wednesday issued an order identifying 36 villages that fall within a ‘containment zone’ and adjoining 104 others that form a ‘buffer zone’. It laid out an “action plan”, which includes forming 289 teams to conduct door-to-door screening of 65 households each, and thermal scanning of “each person of the entire households falling in the containment zone”.
In addition, the containment and buffer zones will be sanitised and movement of inhabitants “absolutely restricted”, with the SDM and nodal officers concerned ensuring essential items are received and distributed to all households.
Meanwhile, after an infected person died in Sadar Bazar, the administration has decided to seal the area as well and declare it a containment zone. Officials said that the formal process will start on Thursday.
Senior officials in the department said a plan has been chalked out to seal around 1.5km of the area for containment. “As per the initial contact tracing, the people have been in contact with a person who has a travel history. We are tracing many more people in the area. Since, the locality is quite congested, we have decided to seal it,” said a senior health official.
On Wednesday, Sadar Bazar and Delhi Gate, both places where people have died of COVID-19, had security personnel keeping a tight vigil. All roads leading to Sadar Bazar were barricaded and police prohibited trucks, cars and people from entering. Major routes to Delhi Gate also remained blocked.
Wearing masks in public mandatory
The Delhi government also made wearing masks in public mandatory on Wednesday. “Wearing facial masks can reduce the spread of coronavirus substantially. Therefore, it has been decided that facial masks will be compulsory for anyone stepping out of their house. Cloth mask shall be eligible too,” CM Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.