It may be wait and watch as Gurgaon’s Covid case count rises

Ipsita Pati | TNN | May 2, 2020, 07:14 IST

Six new coronavirus cases were reported on Friday

Gurgaon: The move from ‘orange’ to ‘red’ zone should indicate an improvement in the Covid-19 containment process. But when it happened in Gurgaon, it was not immediately clear if that was the case — as of Friday, with 63 cases, the district had the highest Covid-19 tally in the state with 24 new cases being reported over the last 15 days and six just on Friday.
So far, the criteria for inclusion of a district in any of the three zones has been based on the case load and number of days without a fresh case. Those with the highest case load would become ‘red’ zones, those with no new cases in 14 days ‘orange’ and ones with no fresh reports in 28 days would turn ‘green’. Haryana also took doubling rate into account. But that has changed.
“The revised guidelines from the government of India now also take into account recovery rates, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback. The list of zones will be revised on a weekly basis. We will wait till May 3 to change the colour codes assigned to districts,” said additional chief secretary (health) Rajiv Arora.
But the criteria are still not quite clear. Neighbouring Faridabad has fewer cases (61) than Gurgaon and one death. In terms of recovery rates, too, it’s doing better — 42 of its 61 patients have been discharged as opposed to the 38 of 63 in Gurgaon. But it is in the ‘red’ zone.
Arora indicated the urban-rural division of cases has also reflected on classification. The revised guidelines state a district with one or more municipal corporations could treat the municipal and non-municipal areas as separate units. So if the case load is concentrated in one unit and not in another, it could be considered that the spread has been contained to a certain degree. “As Gurgaon has a corporation, the MCG areas and other areas are being treated as different units. So it was moved from ‘red’ to ‘orange’ zone,” Arora said.
The cases reported on Friday, meanwhile, all have Delhi links. “An ambulance staff with the Delhi health department, a man whose son is admitted at RML in Delhi, two in his neighbourhood at Dundahera, and two others from a finance firm in Delhi tested positive,” said Gurgaon chief medical officer Dr JS Puniya.