Centre asks states to restore containment zones, quarantines as Covid-19 situation worsens

Atates have been asked to complete 100% vaccination of the 45 plus age group in the next two weeks in those districts that report high case load

The Union Health Ministry on Tuesday asked the states to create “containment zones” for stringent Covid-19 control as it blamed them for inadequate testing and failure to isolate the Covid-19 positive patients, which had led to a spiraling of new cases driving the ongoing second wave of the epidemic.

In addition, the states have been asked to complete 100% vaccination of the 45 plus age group in the next two weeks in those districts that report high case load and fast growth of the epidemic. Bangalore Urban is the lone district from Karnataka in the list of 46 such districts.

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This deadline – set by the Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan in a letter to the Chief Secretaries of all the states – puts a stiff deadline for the Karnataka government to complete the Covid-19 vaccination in Bangalore Urban, which currently has more than 16,000 active cases and the daily caseload is way above the rest of the districts.

"The virus is still very active. It penetrates our defences and strikes back just when we think we can control it. The battle is on in every states,” V K Paul, NITI Aayog member and chairman of the National Expert Group on Vaccination said here on Tuesday.

India on Tuesday reported 56,211 new cases and 271 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. While the disease grows in most of the states, Maharashtra and Punjab are leading the pack

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The officials asked the states to create containment zones with clear cut boundaries and the institutional quarantine systems if they were unable to ensure that Covid-19 positive patients stayed in isolation inside their homes rather than mingling in the society.

"Where there are clusters of cases, simply quarantining individuals or families will not help. In that case, larger containment zones with clear boundaries and stringent controls must be implemented,” Bhushan wrote.

In a containment zone, the effort would be on containing as many cases as possible for 14 days to break the chain of transmission. The functioning of each zone needs to be reviewed daily to see if there are more cases outside than inside the zones. In such a case, the zone area has to be expanded.

Bhushan also pulled up the states for inadequate testing. While the positivity rate for the country was 5.65% last week, it was a whooping 23% for Maharashtra, nearly 9% for Punjab, 8% for Chhattisgarh and close to 8% in Madhya Pradesh. “With such a high positivity, testing must be up. The RT-PCR should be the preferred way of testing whereas rapid antigen tests are to be used as screening tools only in densely populated areas,” he said.

On people’s lax attitude in following the Covid-appropriate behaviour, the senior official said the states must use the Police Act or powers given to the district magistrates to ensure that people wear the masks properly and follow the social distancing norms.

The situation was "turning from bad to worse" and remained a huge cause of worry especially for some states, the officials said, stressing that nobody should be complacent.

Bhushan said while the government has no plans for door-to-door vaccination, more active participation from the private sector was needed as the vaccination drive opens up for all 45 plus people from April 1. For India only 16.5% of vaccine doses were administered at private facilities and the number rose up to 26% for Karnataka.