Gujarat: Saurashtra on the edge over infection due to influx

RAJKOT: The district administration in Saurashtra is jittery fearing import of coronavirus cases into the district with the permission for intrastate travel granted by the state government. Jamnagar, which had only one Covid case till now reported five new cases in the past one week.
Devbhumi Dwarka district also reported its first instances of infection – all due to influx of people from highly infected zones.
The districts of Saurashtra including Amreli, Jamnagar, Rajkot and Surendranagar are facing huge influx of migrants in the past couple of days, a majority of them coming in from Ahmedabad and Surat, the two most infected cities in the state.
While the homebound migrants, many of them jobless and facing uncertainties, are wanting to return to the safer zone, the authorities are spending sleepless nights fearing spread of the dreaded virus from these new entrants from the red zones.
After Amreli, Jamnagar is the second district to face major influx of migrants from the neighbouring districts. Officially, the district is receiving nearly 2,000 people every day from its four checkposts. After screening, the administration quarantines all of them.
On Thursday, Jamnagar district collector, Ravi Shankar, passed an order to requisite all government, semi-government and private schools to turn them into quarantine centres. He also ordered requisition of all halls run by various communities, besides government and private educational hostels equipped with available facility.
Talking to TOI, Shankar said, “The situation is very tough. Community spread in Jamnagar has not started yet, but once these outsiders start pouring in, in huge numbers, then there is a bigger threat of community spread.”
He further said that the government opened the district borders for those who were stranded because of the lockdown, but we have noticed that many people have shifted back to Jamnagar, bag and baggage.
In the wake of the intrastate travel order, various districts have expressed their apprehensions that the spread of Covid in villages at the community level will make it extremely difficult to handle as there is not enough medical facility available at the taluka level to combat the pandemic situation.
Similar is the fear that Amreli is experiencing. The district is expecting an influx of nearly 1.5 lakh people in next two three weeks. However, it has capacity to accommodate 12,000 people in the quarantine facility. The remaining people will have to be quarantined in their homes, said Amreli district collector, Ayush Oak.
Talking to TOI, Oak said, “The bigger problem is that we don’t know which person has come from a containment zone. Amreli natives living in Surat have all documents from the district only. This increases the risk of infected asymptomatic person entering the district. We will now make them apply online and self declare that they are not from containment areas as a preventive measure.”
Surendrangar district collector K Rajesh, meanwhile, is worried about illegal entrants. “A bank employee, who entered illegally in Malvan area, showed symptoms. We had to test 19 people who came in his contact and ultimately waste limited resources for the negligence of one person,” he lamented.
If that’s not all, authorities in Saurashtra are also facing severe staff crunch while handling the massive influx. A few officers have voiced their opinions that like in election time, government should issue orders to rope in central government staff, all school teachers for help.