Coronavirus outbreak: Screen everyone in containment zones, says BMC

Civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal in his first meeting with senior officials since assuming office

BMC's new chief, Iqbal Singh Chahal, is wasting no time and has immediately got cracking on strategies to deal with the city's COVID-19 situation. In his first meeting with senior officials, he stressed on the need for 'target-oriented effective management' of containment zones (CZs) and has ordered the appointment of one coordinator for each zone.

Apart from this, he directed assistant commissioners to look into the strengthening of hospitals in different wards. The civic body declares an area a CZ for 14 days from the time the first positive patient is detected. As of now, there are 2,646 containment zones, of which 60 per cent are in congested areas like slums and chawls.

According to the standard operating procedure, there is supposed to be no movement in CZs, not even for essential services and everything needs to be managed with the help of the BMC and police, but the situation is becoming unmanageable with the number of CZs increasing.

Chahal expressed the need for target-oriented effective management of CZs to control the spread of the virus. He directed the appointment of volunteers for the zones under the COVID-Yoddha scheme for better coordination.

He also said that it was important to increase the rate of contact tracing. Till now, on an average, three close contacts are traced.

Chahal added that this should be doubled and high-risk contacts should be immediately shifted from slum areas to institutional quarantine facilities. The commissioner ordered to allot two ambulances for each COVID centre and also to increase the number of beds in hospitals and co-ordination between hospitals so that patients can get admission without delay.

100
No. of COVID centres across the city

2.6k
No. of containment zones in the city

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