Covid cases see uptick in Gurugram, containment zones rise from 7 to 54 in one week

GURUGRAM: As cases in the city have shown a rise since August 21, the district administration has decided to increase the containment zones to 54. Till last week, there were only seven containment zones in the city.

On August 10, the city had 15 containment zones, which were reduced to seven on August 19 as the cases declined.
However, as the number of Covid-19 new cases increased to 708 between August 17 and August 24, the number of containment zones also increased. While the positivity rate was 5.68% between August 17 and 24, it was 3.86% in the week before that.
The city has been adding more than 100 cases daily since August 21. According to officials, containment zones are de-notified after a period of 14 days if no new cases are reported from the areas.
According to the administration, a considerable number of people travel to Gurugram from across the border, leading to the spike in infection among the locals. Further, there is significant intra-district movement on account of travel to and from centres of economic activities such as industrial and commercial establishments that have now been opened up. In such circumstances, where Gurugram has not yet reached a stage of 14 days without a positive case and has a high proportion of Covid cases, out of the overall cases in Haryana, the threat of the pandemic further spreading cannot be ruled out.
Thus, the health department is imposing stricter measures as per requirements of local areas in order to contain the spread of the virus. Lockdown will continue to be imposed in the containment zones until further orders and the officials will enforce stricter measures of isolation and social distancing.
For instance, on Monday, a Covid patient and two doctors were booked for violating guidelines and putting the lives of people at risk.
“We have observed that in many areas, people are roaming around without masks and don’t follow social distancing. As a result, new cases are emerging in the city,” said chief medical officer Virender Yadav.
Meanwhile, the Jacobpura area has been identified as a large outbreak region after 15 members of a family tested positive. Officials said that extensive contact tracing and testing is being conducted. “It is imperative to adopt strict measures in large outbreak areas to contain the spread of Covid-19, which we are doing,” said DC Amit Khatri.