The State government on Thursday announced a targeted containment strategy to prevent new COVID-19 flare-ups.
In his customary news briefing, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the plan focussed on locking down localities within a limited radius of the fresh outbreak for a minimum of seven days while allowing life to continue as usual outside the perimeter of the hotspot.
The scheme signalled a new stage in the State’s response to the outbreak wherein the government hoped to halt a possible rise in infections without risking further economic collapse.
The government would impose future lockdowns in a distributed manner based on the community-level pandemic situation instead of a district, panchayat, or municipality as a whole.
The government will notify new containment zones before midnight every day.
It has accorded district authorities considerable latitude in imposing lockdown restrictions at the street, market, neighbourhood, harbour, shopping mall, and residential colony level.
In cities, authorities will restrict containment zones to sub-ward level and in villages up to the ward level. The authorities would lock down a neighbourhood if at least one person contracted the infection through “local contact”.
Containment zone
If any arrival quarantined in a particular house tested positive, that building and the adjacent ones would be reckoned as an independent containment zone.
Authorities could cut off an entire street or a cluster of houses from the rest of the ward if more than two persons in quarantine in the locality tested positive.
If more than 10 persons got infected through primary contact or 25 persons have to go into quarantine because of secondary contract, the entire ward will be shut down. A panchayat, municipality, or Corporation will be categorised as colour-coded red if there are containment zones in more than 50% of its wards.
The District Collector will decide whether to extend the lockdown after the mandatory seven-day period. Inside the containment area, residents can leave their home only for emergencies. The police will severely restrict entry and exit and will not allow mobility, gatherings, or non-essential shops and services. Health workers will regularly visit the locality and conduct tests. Law enforcers will arrest those who break quarantine. Mr. Vijayan said quarantine in containment zones meant not “home quarantine but room quarantine” from now on.