Pune police cracks down on people who are violating Covid-19 guidelines, near Pune Railway Station on March 3. (Express Photo: Arul Horizon) THE PMC has decided to become more specific in declaring containment zones at a micro level for buildings with at least five active Covid-19 cases or large societies with a minimum of 20 active cases in a day. The civic body will also be scaling up testing capacity in response to the rising number of new infections.
“There is a surge in the city and the PMC is gearing up to contain the spread of the infection. The PMC will not declare a larger area as a containment zone and instead will focus on buildings, housing societies or small localities to be declared as containment zone,” said Mayor Murlidhar Mohol.
Mohol further said assistant municipal commissioners, who are incharge of ward offices, have been empowered to declare containment zones in their respective areas depending on the number of patients. “A building would be declared as a containment zone if a minimum of five active cases are reported in it. In case of large housing societies, if there is a minimum of 20 active cases, then the society would be declared a containment zone,” he said.
The PMC will put stickers on the entrance of a house that has Covid-19 patients, so that outsiders do not enter the premises. Also, the civic administration has decided to put home quarantine stamps on the wrist of patients. The PMC is also planning to take legal action against patients violating quarantine rules.
The PMC will urge for regular Covid-19 screening of senior citizens, co-morbid people and children below 10 years of age residing in the neighbourhood of a containment zone. The civic administration has appointed a quick response team at each ward office to track patients and conduct contract tracing.
On Thursday, the PMC recorded 904 new positive cases, taking the number of active cases to 5,886. A total of seven persons died of the viral infection on the day, taking the toll to 4,876.