As India intensifies its fight against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the focus has shifted to about 1,200 containment zones, mostly in states which have reported more than 100 Covid-19 cases. These zones are now under a more strict form of lockdown, with a complete prohibition in the movement of residents, with states adopting specific measures to implement restrictions.
The zones — varied in size and scale, ranging from apartment blocks to entire neighbourhoods, even parts of an entire district — are the frontlines of the battle against the pandemic now, where no one, other than except authorised government officials and health workers, are allowed to enter or exit.
The declaration of these zones has happened a little over two weeks into a national lockdown. In the past few days, on directions of the health ministry, state governments have declared a large number of containment zones. Maharashtra alone has 401 containment zones, with Mumbai having 381 and Pune 20. Uttar Pradesh has 105 containment zones, Rajasthan 38, Madhya Pradesh 180, Tamil Nadu 220, Delhi 23, Telangana 125, including 36 in Hyderabad, and 121 in Andhra Pradesh.
Containment zones are more localised (up to a kilometer in radium) than the hotspots (spreading to several kilometers) and are aimed to prevent spread of Covid-19 from a locality or a village to nearby areas. “In simple terms, it is a barrier erected around the focus of infection,” said a health ministry document on containment zones.
The logic is that the authorities can focus on containing the infections to a limited cluster, screening residents so that those with symptoms can be identified, testing necessary and eligible cases, and ensuring that those infected and those with a contact history of those infected have no interface with the outside world. Expert quote here on efficacy of the model.
In these zones, the police, including special response team of armed commandoes, maintain a round-the-clock watch, assisted with CCTV cameras and drones. Essentials are being delivered by Covid volunteers.
Teams of sanitary workers spray disinfectants at regular intervals; health care and local officials do door-to-door surveys; no outlet is allowed to remain open; and people are not being allowed even in the common areas of their localities. Aggressive contact tracing of Covid-19 patients is being done and movement of people, including non-Covid positive persons, is being monitored through mobile apps.
State governments, across the country, have adopted different strategies to manage these zones. States such as Odisha, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have released maps on social media notifying the boundary and the buffer of the containment zones.
Chennai has two-layered containtment zones. Within nine large zones, there are 70 smaller containment clusters, in the immediate vicinity of those who have tested positive for Covid-19. Each containment zone has a protective radius of five kilometers where movement of people is restricted and disinfectant spraying carried out regularly.
Mumbai, which has the highest number of Covid-19 patients for a city, has more than doubled the number of containment zones in the city in the past two days to 381 zones. A locality having even a single Covid-19 patient is being declared a containment zone. “The health of every person in the zone is monitored around the clock,” said a BMC official.
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In Delhi, no one is being allowed within two kilometers of containment zone. The police have put barricades and special local control rooms have been set up to monitor movement of people there through CCTV cameras, officials said.
Officials in Jaipur said that every home in the 20 containment areas were being sanitised twice a day.
On Thursday, most of the containment zones bore a deserted look as police pushed people back into their homes and municipal workers started massive sanitisation drives, spraying disinfections, cleaning door of individual homes, followed by health workers screening all individuals.
In Lucknow’s Sadar’s Kasaibada locality, where Tablighi Jamaat attendees were staying in 12 mosques, Yogendra Kumar, a resident, said, “I peeped out of my window at around 11 am and found cops using a baton to push back three people who had come out in the street despite the strict orders to remain indoors. In the morning, every nook and corner of the locality was cleaned.”
In Bhopal, around 3,00,000 people are confined in 70 containment zones. “Health status of every person is with authorities,” said a Bhopal district administration official. In Indore, about half-a-million people are confined in their homes in the around 90 containment zones. “A constant health survey is being done,” said Dr RR Patel, joint director in the directorate of information at Indore.
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In Punjab’s Mohali, where 15 people tested positive in a Jawaharpur village, 24*7 police barricades have been put up. “Any area, where positive cases are reported, is ‘contained’ by us. We have allowed essential supplies to the village. Entry and exit in these villagers is banned,” said Mohali deputy commissioner (DC) Girish Dayalan said, adding quick response teams comprising of Punjab police commandoes have been deployed in these places.
Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has announced a “containment zone”, of 1.5 km length and 800 metre width containment zone around a housing complex, the epicenter of the local outbreak with 18 Coronavirus cases. On Twitter, the BMC released a map showing a black dotted line along the busy Cuttack-Puri road indicating the contours of the zone saying “no one can enter or exit” as long as the containment orders were on.
However, locals, including some who went out to buy medicines, said that despite a helpline to order essentials, the supply has been erratic. Similar complaints were also reported from Ghaziabad, Noida and Jaipur.
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More than shortage of supplies, there is palpable fear of catching the deadly virus. Suketh Chinchela, who lives in Bhubaneshwar’s Surya Nagar area with his family, said there is a certain eerie feeling of living in a containment zone. “But the fear is more that the dreaded disease has come to our doors. Surya Nagar is an area full of retired bureaucrats and old people, thereby heightening the fear,” said Chinchela.
“The place looks like a graveyard even in the daytime,” said Samar Khadas, a resident of containment zone in Mumbai’s Worli. “Many residents urgently need physiological counseling as they are feeling depressed,” he said. A resident of Rambanj in Jaipur, Uday Narayan Singh, whose area is under curfew for the past 15 days, said that patience and cooperating with the authorities is the only way to come out of it. “I have seen even most people getting disturbed. We need more reassurance from the government that we are safe,” he said.
Kasaragod in Kerala, has been a model in fighting Covid-19 through a containment zone. The small district in northern Kerala, from where 156 of the state’s 345 coronavirus cases were reported, was the first to be declared a containment zone in the country and had been so since March 24.
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Initially, it was difficult for the people to go by stricter norms but the police implemented them ruthlessly. Strict action forced many to remain indoors. “We have made the turnaround. We did it ruthlessly and told people it is life and death situation. Results are there to see,” said Vijay Sakhare, Inspector General of Police (Kochi range) who was specially assigned in north Kerala when situation turned alarming.
Usman Koya, a native of Kananhad, said it was “worse” than a curfew. “Though we faced many difficulties we realised it is for our good. But I am happy these restrictions helped contain the virus otherwise Kasaragod would have been another Dharavi,” she said.
Declaring Kasaragod a containment zone prevented community spread. “Among 156 cases, 101 are people returned from the West Asian countries. The rest are their immediate contacts. There is no community spread in the district but we are keeping a strict vigil,” said district collector D Sajith Babu.
The model was also replicated in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, where the health workers in a private hospital first got infected. The state adopted a model of “ruthless containment”, which succeeded in stopping infections and its spread.