Kolkata: Number of micro-containment units crosses 1,000 mark

KOLKATA: Officially, the city now has 1,009 micro-containment units.
With over 1,500 active cases in Kolkata and each patient’s residence being considered an individual containment unit, the number is not that shocking. However, there are some key findings on the list that has led both KMC and Kolkata Police to harp on the need of micro-surveillance at apartments and standalone buildings in 30 most-affected wards, most of which — with the exception of Beliaghata and Phoolbagan — are in the south and added areas.

In the last 24 hours, 99 new names of micro-containment zones have been added to the list, which till Tuesday had 910 names. While 89 of the new micro-zones are in the south, merely 30 were from the north, the list published on the Egiye Bangla website confirmed. On the positive side, around 20 containment units have turned green. While Tangra and Kidderpore-Ekbalpore continued to witness a spike in some of old affected zones on DC Dey Road and Braunfield Row, Bhowanipore and Ballygunge continued to report new cases.
On Wednesday, fresh cases were reported from within the staff quarters of a hospital located near Lansdowne, Panditya Road, Dover Terrace and Fort William, along with apartments at Ruby crossing, Kalikapur, Banamali Naskar Road (Behala), Judges Court Road (Alipore/Chetla), Gopal Nagar, Dhakuria Panchanatala slum and DL Khan Road near Bhowanipore. Mudiali area, which had managed to turn into a green zone several weeks ago, now has three separate micro-containment units.
KMC and Kolkata Police have now decided to check even asymptomatic patients from public spots close to these zones, a method that was adopted to control the virus spread in the slums of Belgachhia and Narkeldanga. Santanu Sen, who is part of the Covid-advisory committee in KMC, said: “The approach is beginning to pay dividends in populated clusters. We are confident it will be successful in apartments as well,” he said.
KMC has also asked dedicated teams to carry out house-to-house surveys. Each team will be in charge of one containment zone. Lalbazar has decided to impose total shutdown in containment zones in case the lockdown rules are openly flouted. The cops are accompanying a KMC health team armed with thermal guns on a house-to-house search for possible infected cases.