The Line Of Corona Control

Hotspots and containment zones within them are the thrust areas as the government looks to maximise gains from the extended lockdown

- Amarnath K. Menon

On the 90-foot road, an otherwise vibrant spot in Mumbai’s Dharavi, policemen take out a flag march appealing to people to stay home. Teams of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) go checking door to door for those with symptoms of COVID-19, such as high fever, persistent cough and breathing difficulty. With 86 positive cases and nine deaths (as on April 16) among its estimated 850,000 residents, Dharavi, one of Asia’s most densely populated slums spread over just 2.4 km, has been the focus of considerable attention by worried municipal officials.

By mid-April, the BMC had marked out nearly 400 ‘outbreak containment zones’ across Mumbai. Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban are two of the 170 ‘hotspots’ of coronavirus in the country—and among Maharashtra’s 14—as classified by the Union ministry for health and family welfare (MoHFW). In Delhi, where the ministry has identified 10 hotspots, the number of containment zones has gradually risen to 55. It is these hotspots where the Centre and states aim to focus their energy and resources in the coming weeks of the extended lockdown to try and flatten the coronavirus curve.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on April 14 made this amply evident. Modi said that states and Union territories that will effectively contain the COVID spread in their hotspots could expect some relaxations from the prevailing restrictions after April 20. In their rounds of discussions, too, the prime minister and the chief ministers have concurred that the way forward is to stringently enforce protocols in the hotspots in order to contain any spurt in cases.