All those above 60 years and pregnant women (third trimester antenatal care) will be protected.

COVID-19: In a first, ‘reverse quarantine’ is set to be implemented in Ahmedabad in order to protect 17,000 pregnant women and as many as two lakh elder citizens living in rural areas of the city. The objective is to safeguard them from contracting the Coronavirus infection. The practise as of now, will be practised first in Ahmedabad city only, the IE reported. According to Arun Mahesh Babu, District Development Officer (DDO) of Ahmedabad, reverse quarantine can be termed as a practice of detaching the vulnerable group from the general public aimed at protecting them from getting COVID-19 infection. Under this, all those above 60 years and pregnant women (third trimester antenatal care) will be protected.

The report citing Ahmedabad DDO further explained that the two groups will be asked to stay at home only since there is prevalence of local transmission in rural areas. The risk of transmission increases significantly when they move around. He added that they have become even more vulnerable ever since the government has lifted restrictions on the industrial sector and gave permissions for inter-state travel. If these groups are infected, it will add on to the stress to the healthcare system and will also damage the fatality record of the state, the report highlighted.

It is to note that the number of cases have gone up to 251, increased five times within a span of a month. Around 45 per cent of the Coronavirus cases have come from municipalities or nagarpalikas and 30 per cent of infected people are from villages. Remaining cases in the country have come from industrial clusters. Village people working at Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Intas Pharmaceuticals and Zydus Cadila were also found to have Coronavirus.

To be sure, the district administration has started implementing this reverse quarantine in the city’s Detroj taluka and will expand to other green zones in the district such as Mandal, Dhandhuka and Dholera. In these places, the number of Coronavirus cases are on the lower side.

While the DDO did not comment on community transmission in the city, he said that the decision is taken as preventive measure. The report underlined that local youth and healthcare workers in villages will administer the reverse quarantine process.