Health Ministry: Districts to be classified into 3 categories on COVID-19 contamination

Union Health Ministry in daily briefing on Wednesday elaborated on strategy of government to combat COVID-19 epidemic in India. It said that districts in country will be classified into three categories based on level of vel Coronavirus contamination. So far, 170 districts have been declared COVID hotspots.

" districts of country will be classified into three categories — hotspot districts, n-hotspot districts but where cases are being reported and green zone districts. Hotspot districts will be those where eir large number of cases are being reported or where rate of growth of COVID-19 cases is high (or in or words, doubling time is low)," Joint Secretary for Health, Lav Aggarwal said.

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Cabinet Sec talks to senior State authorities

officials informed that Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba held a video conference on Wednesday with all State Chief Secretaries, DGPs, Health Secretaries, District Collectors, SPs, Municipal Commissioners and Chief Medical Officers where hotspots were discussed and orientation on field level implementation of containment strategy was given. 

"Large outbreak and cluster outbreak containment strategy, delineation of buffer and containment zone, parameter mapping, defining of entry and exit points were discussed in detail," Aggarwal said. He ded that in containment zones, samples will be collected and tested according to criteria while in "buffer zones", that lay outside containment areas, health facilities will be oriented and people facing SARS and influenza-like symptoms will be tested. 

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Precaution in green zones

Health Ministry also said that even in those districts which don't have COVID-19 cases (green zones), community engment needs to be undertaken to upgre health infrastructure and dedicated COVID Hospitals need to be set up. Monitoring and testing of cases with SARS and flu-like symptoms would need to be done. This is to ensure that cases don't spring up in se green zones.

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 community transmission st yet

Health Ministry reiterated that COVID-19 outbreak has t yet reached 'community transmission st' and that only local outbreaks have been reported. joint secretary informed that newly procured PPEs have been sent to different States. 

Speaking about Coronavirus cases, Lav Aggarwal said, "1306 patients have recovered of which 270 happened in last 24 hours. So far, re are 11,439 cases. 1,076 new cases were reported since yesterday. 377 people have so far died."

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