Interior city of Ggm most affected by COVID-19 amid rising cases

Gurugram: With COVID-19 cases increasing in Gurugram steadily, while more focus has been given on areas bordering the national Capital, official data suggests that the interior city area is most affected by the pandemic, with continued reports of a large number of daily cases.

Some of the worst affected areas in Old Gurugram are Sector 10, Sector 10-A, Sector-7, Model Town, Rajendra Park, Ashok Vihar, Gandhi Nagar, Arjun Nagar, Bhim Nagar, Basai, Acharya Puri, Shakti Park and Khandsa Vegetable wholesale market. There have been more than 1300 cases that have been reported from these areas only.

Reports of less screening of residents, poor track record of contact tracing and also complaints of residents flouting the social distancing norms has raised the risk of more cases being reported from these areas.

According to officials from the Gurugram Health Department, residents in Old Gurugram are more at risk of contracting the infection as they reside in the dense clusters. Among some of the residents who reside in these cluster colonies include menial workers, industrial workers. Officials fear that most of these workers are now hiding their disease as they fear that coming out with the disease with them losing their job. The stigma attached to the disease may result in more undetected cases being reported, say officials.

Officials also highlight that a large number of cases being reported form the Khandsa vegetable wholesale market has also contributed to a massive spike in the number of cases in the nearby areas around the wholesale market.

Khandsa Mandi as it is known is the largest vegetable wholesale market in Gurugram. With a spate of cases emerging from the Gurugram's largest wholesale market, it has been a double whammy for the producers, sellers and the buyers.

Not only is there a fear of contracting the deadly infection but there is also scare among the small time traders, farmers of their livelihood being affected with the operations at the wholesale vegetable market being adversely affected. The complex chain got highlighted when a large number of cases residents in Palam Vihar got infected after they had bought their vegetables from vendors who had in turn purchased their inventories from Khandsa Vegetable Market.

Taking cognisance of the large number of cases being reported from the crowded and dense areas of the city, the health officials are preparing to undertake large scale random sampling in Old Gurugram.

Gurugram on Wednesday reported 217 fresh cases of COVID-19, taking the total number of cases past the 2,500-mark. The total number of COVID-19 cases in Gurugram now stands at 2,546.

On Wednesday, the city which has emerged as a major concern for authorities ended up reporting 184 recoveries, which is the highest single-day number of recoveries in the city.

The total number of patients that have been now cured of COVID-19 in Gurugram stands at 824. The total number of patients that are receiving treatment for COVID-19 is 1,709.

In a worrying trend there were two more deaths that have been reported from Gurugram on Wednesday. The fatality rate in Gurugram now stands at 13.

Taking cognisance of the rising number of cases the Haryana government on Wednesday transferred Gurugram Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Jagdish Punia to Nuh and replaced him with Dr Virender Yadav who was earlier the CMO at Nuh. Dr Yadav is credited with containing the number of cases in Nuh which initially had the highest number of cases in Haryana.