AHMEDABAD: The horrors of a June like situation when
Covid virus pockmarked every portion of the city like chicken pox, now stares at us with even more certainty, reveals the latest Aarogya Setu tracing app data.
By late November or by early December, Ahmedabad city may face a second wave if citizens continue to disregard basic hygiene measures and wearing masks. Areas like Ambawadi,
Bopal, Bodakdev, Sarkhej and Subhash bridge have now been emerging as the Covid hotspots since the lockdown eased in September.
To give an idea of how Covid-19 virus puts people at risk, the Aarogya Setu data is worth noticing. In the north west zone for instance on June 1, areas like Bodakdev, Thaltej, Ghatlodiya, Chandlodiya and Gota collectively reported 13,755 people who either had come in contact with Covid infected persons or had reported symptoms. Within 15 days, the number of those who had come in contact with Covid-19 positive people jumped to 1.90 lakh people, turning the whole area “dark pink”.
In the following 15 days, this number dropped a little to 1.06 lakh by the first week of July. Till September 3, the number of people under Covid risk hovered between 71,000 and 73,000. Between 13 September and 29 September, these areas saw a 86% jump in the cases. Contrary to this, the central zone saw 3.61 lakh people who had come in contact with Covid-19 positive persons by June 15. However, due to the stringent measures, this number dropped to 47,000.
“Between September and mid-October nearly 50% of the Covid cases were reported from the western parts of the city. These include Paldi, Vasna, Naranpura, Vadaj, Chandlodiya, Gota, Bopal, Naranpura, Ghatlodiya , Bodakdev, Sarkhej and Maktampura,” claimed a senior health official from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
Aarogya Setu relays information of users only when one of the owners of the registered devices tests Covid-19 positive. The app then traces all “at risk” registered devices that had come in contact with the positive persons in the last 60 days. “The data pertaining to the registered mobile users within the reach of 150 meters around every mobile tower was sought, which helped us pin point societies and offices which were at risk. Accordingly, colour codes like blue for less severe, amber for moderately severe and pink for very severe were assigned,” explained the health official.