Gurugram will only seal areas with more than 5 cases in 1-km radius

GURUGRAM: A day after the highest spike in the number of Covid-19 cases, Gurugram revised the definition of containment zones on Friday. The city has 66 containment zones now, up from 63. While 10 new containment zones were added, seven were removed.
Under revised guidelines, an area will be declared a containment zone if there are more than five cases within a 1-km radius. With 153 more cases on Friday, Gurugram now has 1,563 cases, the highest in Haryana. And since most were reported only over the past week, 1,227 are active cases. “Fresh Covid cases are going up every day. We cannot afford to seal an area if only one case is reported. It would lead to too many containment zones,” a senior health official said. “Earlier, we would seal a building or a tower if there was one case. Now, there are far too many cases.” So if a society or even a tower has five or fewer cases, it will not be sealed. Only the house where the patient lives will have a sticker on the door.
“If there are more containment zones, we will need more personnel — doctors, health staff, government officials — and more money. This is why we had to modify the policy,” a district official said. “If sealing is done for every case, the entire district will become a containment zone.”
The state guidelines say a 3-km radius from the place a Covid cases has been reported should be sealed. But it is up to the district to make relevant changes. “For cases in standalone offices and commercial buildings, we take the address of the patient’s residence, not office. However, the office does have to be sanitised completely,” said Gurugram chief medical officer Dr JS Punia. The MCG will do that, but the onus of asking MCG to disinfect the premises is on the office.
Added to the list are Ganga Vihar (Sector 12), D 55 (Sector 56), Maruti Vihar Gate (Saraswati Vihar), Gali number 1-6 and 11-13 (Hans Enclave), Nitin Vihar, Princeton Estate (DLF Phase 5), Pink Town House (DLF Phase 3), A Block in Harmony Homes (Sector 57) and Rama Apartment (Sushant Lok 1). Besides, Lagoon Apartments had seven cases. But since the containment zone review committee did not want to disclose the apartment number, the block was sealed, a health official said.