MillenniumPost
Delhi

As containment zones surge past 2K-mark, a majority restricted to single flats & floors

New Delhi: As Coronavirus cases in the Capital continue to touch new highs, so does the number of containment zones, which have now surged well past 2,000 across different districts according to the latest government data.

However, these containment zones are largely restricted to a single floor or even a house where after carrying out the necessary safety protocols, authorities have sealed the particular building and told its residents to stay put.

Millennium Post visited some of these containment zones in order to help visualise the size and expanse of such places even as they are rapidly increasing on a daily basis.

At South-East Delhi's Lajpat Nagar, despite a whole building being listed as a containment zone, it was found to be limited to only the 2nd and 3rd floors occupied by a couple and their parents who were found to be infected in August. One of the building's residents said that the family was told not to come out by the authorities while all other residents "carried on with their lives as usual".

Similarly, at Masjid Road in Jangpura, around 5 members of a family staying on the 3rd floor of a building had contracted the infection but the whole building had been classified as sealed according to government records. The building has now been de-contained for around 15 days, one of the shopkeepers said.

The number of containment zones in the City has more than doubled in less than a month, from 922 containment zones as of September 2 to 2,124 on September 25. Of these, there are 1,614 active containment zones.

In North East Delhi, of the 81 containment zones, all are individual houses. At most, the houses or flats adjacent and in front of them have been segregated. Similarly, among West Delhi's 233 containment zones, the largest unit is one block in a residential colony in Subhash Nagar. The rest are all either single apartments or houses. All such houses and flats which have been demarcated as containment zones also come with vague directions to segregate the houses adjacent or around them, for example, the entire floor of an apartment building where one flat has been marked as a containment zone, is also to be treated as one.

In East Delhi too, which now has 69 containment zones, a similar trend was observed. North Delhi has 144 containment zones, several of

which are entire apartment buildings, unlike the smaller units in other districts.

Meanwhile, in Malviya Nagar, at one of the active containment zones, a police officer manning the barricades that blocked half the lane, said that only three persons in a 4-member family have been found infected and are under home quarantine. "Residents are allowed to leave their

houses only for an emergency purchase or work purposes," the officer said.

Even at a house in D Block in South Extension, a containment zone was limited to a single floor where both the patients, who contracted the virus last month, were hospitalised. One of the residents there said that the whole lane was briefly barricaded for around four days before being reopened on the 9th of this month. "There were no additional restrictions beyond that," she said.

In New Delhi, however, which has 92 containment zones, the security and segregation were a bit more strict. Although COVID-19 positive cases had been reported from individual bungalows or houses, the entire street where those residences stood had been demarcated as a containment zone in the RK Puram, Vasant Kunj, Sadar Bazaar, and Barakhamba Road localities.

Next Story
Share it