Srinagar May 1: With increasing recovery rate of COVID-19 patients, the Union Health Ministry has decided to move many of the districts in Jammu and Kashmir from red zone to orange and green zones from the week starting after May 3, when the nationwide lockdown is due to end.
Jammu and Kashmir has four districts each in red and green zones while remaining 12 are in orange zone, read a letter from Preeti Sudan, Union Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, to the UT of J&K.
Bandipora, Shopian, Anantnag and Srinagar have been put in red zone while Pulwama, Kishtwar, Doda and Poonch have been placed in green zone after witnessing no coronavirus case in the past 21 days.
“It is important to ensure that we identify pockets of critical interventions for a focused management of COVID-19 at the field level,” wrote Sudan.
With 127 COVID-19 patients, Bandipora is at the top of the list followed by Srinagar with 91 cases and Anantnag with 84 cases.
All districts were earlier designated as hotspots or red zones, orange zones and green zones primarily based on the cumulative cases reported and the doubling rate.
“Since recovery rates have gone up, the districts are now being designated across various zones duly broad-basing the criteria. This classification is multi-factorial and takes into consideration incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback to classify the districts,” Sudan mentioned.
India now has 130 red zones, 284 orange zones, and 319 green zones.
A district is declared green zone, if there are no confirmed cases or there is no reported case in the last 21 days. Earlier, the criteria was 28 days without a case.
The Health Ministry has allowed the states designate additional red or orange zones based on field feedback. However, they have not been allowed to relax the zonal classification of districts classified as red or orange as communicated by the Ministry.
“If one or more of these units have reported no cases for the last 21 days, they can be considered as one level lower in zonal classification, in case the district is in red/orange zone,” stated the Health Ministry.
The Ministry also said it was critical to ensure that necessary action for containment, so as to break the chain of transmission of virus, was initiated in both red and orange zone districts.
It directed the states and UTs that containment zones in these districts have to be delineated based on mapping of cases and contacts, geographical dispersion of cases and contacts, area with well demarcated perimeter, and enforceability.
The Health Ministry has emphasised on strict implementation of Containment Action Plans aimed to contain the disease within a defined geographic area by controlling the movement of people in and out of these zones, early detection of cases, breaking the chain of transmission, and thus preventing its spread to new areas.
All States have been asked to delineate the containment zones and buffer zones in the identified red and orange zone districts and notify the same.
As per official reports, 70,408 people have been put under observation in J&K. As many as 7,335 people are under home quarantine, 390 in hospital isolation and 193 in hospital quarantine, while 8,398 people have been put under home surveillance.
The report also mentioned that 54,084 have completed the surveillance period.
As per official data, J&K has so far carried 19,746 tests, out of which 19,132 tested negative, while 617 reported positive for coronavirus.
At least eight people have died, while 216 have recovered from the infection. Currently, there are 390 active cases in J&K.
The government has put a strict ban on all social and religious gatherings and has asked people to cooperate with the visiting screening team members.
