Many containment or red zones in the city may turn into orange and later into green after May 3, if no further positive cases are recorded from these areas.
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The city has six containment zones apart from Elamanchili and Narsipatnam in the rural.
The containment zones in the city include Akkayyapalem, Thatichetlapalem, Gajuwaka, Poorna Market, Padmanabham and Allipuram.
The last active positive case was recorded from Akkayyapalem and Thatichetlapalem area on April 23. But there is a gap of over 17 days from the last case and the previous ones that were recorded on April 6 from Narsipatnam (2 cases) and Thatichetlapalem (3 cases). In between there was one case from Sheelanagar area, but that was from a quarantine facility.
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“If we do not record any more positive cases from the red zone areas, then except for Akkayyapalem and Thatichetlapalem, the other areas qualify to be declared as orange zone, as per the Union government’s guidelines and protocol,” said Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar Meena.
As per the protocol, the moment a positive case is recorded, the area with 3 -km radius is declared as containment zone or red zone. But can turn into orange only after 28 days from the date of recording the positive case or after 14 days after the patient is declared as negative and discharged from the hospital. “Within these 28 days, we sanitise the area and complete at least four rounds of screening and testing,” said Mr. Meena.
If no other positive case is detected within 28 days, it turns into orange and it stays as orange for 14 days and finally turns to green.
Once declared as red, the area is completely frozen, orange extends some relaxation and green is when the area is declared as normal, explained Mr. Meena.
According to him, there are still 1,192 persons in around 15 quarantine centres in the city.
Relaxation for Ramadan
“The holy month of Ramadan has already begun from Saturday and keeping the fasting regime in mind, we have decided to allow shops to open from 3.30 a.m. to 11 a.m. All grocery stores and fruits and vegetable stores and shops selling essentials can open,” said Mr. Meena.
In Visakhapatnam there are about 86 masjids, and since religious congregations have been put on hold for some time, only five senior persons from the faith concerned will be allowed to offer prayers at the masjids on a daily basis.
Applications for passes
Ever since the government has asked people to apply for passes for inter-district or inter-State travel, the Commissionerate has been flooded with over 10,000 applications.
After screening, the commisionerate has issued 1,200 passes. Most of the passes issued were based on the intensity of the emergency such as death in a family or medical grounds, said Mr. Meena.
When it comes to medical grounds, about 50% pertain to pregnancy related cases.
A large number of applications were based on trivial grounds, he said.