Thirteen new COVID-19 containment zones were demarcated in the GHMC purview on Tuesday, in addition to the 126 already existing, taking the total number of containment zones to 139 in the city.
The new zones are indicative of the freshly identified COVID-19 positive cases in the city. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had, at Monday’s review meeting, asked officials to pay special attention to the city in view of the highest number of novel coronavirus cases identified here.
As per the guidelines issued by the government, GHMC has to demarcate the surrounding locality of the house where a COVID-19 positive case has been identified, as containment zone. Movement of people into and out of the containment zones is severely restricted, in order to arrest the spread of the disease. Residents inside the zones are to stay strictly inside their homes, and not venture out. The zones will be kept under 24x7 surveillance, and teams are to visit each household to monitor the health of inmates, and identify more suspected cases.
As on Tuesday, a total of 1,398 persons have been under home quarantine in the city. A statement from GHMC said the control room with the helpline number 040-21111111 set up for citizens’ assistance during lock down received a total of 326 calls on Tuesday.
Of these, nine pertained to suspected coronavirus infection cases. Ten calls were made for ambulance and 20 for ration. Calls with food requests were also received from seven containment areas and the information was forwarded to Annapurna Mobile Teams.
Intensive spraying of disinfectant solution was taken up in all government health centres, hospitals, containment zones, and home quarantine areas by the disaster response forces, and GHMC Entomology wing.