NEW DELHI: The residents of Mansara Apartment in Vasundhara Enclave heaved a sigh of relief as the containment building was de-sealed on Friday.
On April 24, the East Delhi District Magistrate issued a notice that one resident of the building had tested positive on March 26 and was transferred to RML Hospital the same day. The patient was discharged and returned to his residence.
“As per guidelines circulated by the Union Health Ministry, the operation will be scaled down if no secondary laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 case is reported from the geographic quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all his contacts have been monitored for 28 days. The health authorities have confirmed that these two conditions are fulfilled. Therefore, the said society is de-contained as a scaling down process,” said the notice.
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Talking about the success in curtailing virus cases, East Delhi District Magistrate Arun Kumar Mishra told this reporter that containment helped to increase sensitivity among people.
“Population density is high in east Delhi which is a challenge. as even essential utilities shops are also closely located. For five or six colonies, there exists only one market. In such a situation, cases were likely to multiply speedily after March 21. So we took an administrative decision to seal the which resulted in no mass transfer of the virus,” he said.
The Delhi government had started containing COVID-19 prone areas from April 8 and announced of ‘Operation Shield’ a day later.
"The guidelines of containment were already framed before Operation Shield was officially announced. There has been no increase of cases in containment zones. Even if fresh cases have come, they are among family members. There has been no community spread and this is good news,” he added.
In East Delhi, three streets of Khichripur, and Mansara Apartments in Vasundhara Enclave were turned into containment zones on March 31 while Vardhaman Apartments in Mayur Vihar Phase 1 Extension was made a containment zone on April 2.
Specific areas such as J, K, L and H pockets of Dilshad Garden, and G, H, J blocks of Old Seemapuri were identified as the first two containment zones and government claims no new cases were reported there since April 1.
The Delhi government on April 16 claimed that due to the success of ‘Operation Shield’, no new coronavirus cases had been reported from these containment zones.
COVID-19 cases rise to 109 in Gautam Buddh Nagar
Six more people, including three teenagers, tested positive for coronavirus in Gautam Buddh Nagar on Friday, taking the number of cases in the district to 109, officials said.
With two more people recovering, the number of cured in the district rose to 56, they said.