Vadodara: Chhota Udepur’s tribal population toils as labourers in almost every district of Saurashtra, Kutch and Covid-19 hotspots like Ahmedabad and Surat. Despite being one of the largest labour exporting districts, the number of Covid-19 cases there has consistently remained low and is currently the second-lowest in the state.
As per rough estimates, 80-90% of the workforce population migrates every year in search of work.
In terms of literacy and health infrastructure, the tribal-dominated district has been one of the backward districts of the state. However, the district administration has been able to follow-up every case until the patient is cured and trace all persons who came in contact.
Until June, the number of cases in the district had not crossed 50 as the health department monitored every person who entered the district and kept a check on them for 14 days. “We had health posts just like police check posts at all entry points of the district where every person entering the district was checked for symptoms and every detail of all persons were taken,” said in-charge collector and district development officer, Mihir Patel. The records were compiled at Central Command and Control Centre and distributed to teams at taluka and block level. The teams used to check on the new entrants for 14 days.
The cases started building up, as everything opened in phases. The health department stopped cordoning areas, as people used to hide their symptoms and not go for testing. “We started taking community and local business leaders into confidence and made them aware,” added Patel. Areas and towns then started going into voluntary lockdown whenever the cases increased. Meanwhile, health teams continued to survey all houses every 20 days to check symptoms. Another team is deployed in identifying new hotspots and monitoring the progress in the existing ones.
“Besides these measures, two important steps that helped in containing the numbers were the high number of testing and tracing all contacts of the patients,” said Patel.