With more than 30% of the new COVID-19 cases in Pune city now emerging outside designated containment zones, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has drawn up a fresh list, adding new zones and increasing the number of micro-containment clusters to 73 from the previous number of 66.
In an order issued late on Tuesday, PMC Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad deleted 24 ‘old’ containment zones and designated 32 new ones which had witnessed a spike in COVID-19 cases. At the same time, in a bid to keep to economic activity humming along, the cumulative area under containment in the city has been reduced from 9.28 sq. km a fortnight ago to 6.645 sq. km
The city has been witnessing an average surge of nearly 300 cases for the past few days as a number of hitherto green zones are in danger of transforming into red ones.
The Aundh-Baner and Kothrud-Bavdhan areas, which were safe from the scourge of the contagion till now, have witnessed fresh cases with the Bopodi slum cluster (in Aundh-Baner) reporting 246 cases in the past two weeks. Wadarwadi and Janawadi slums in Shivajinagar have emerged as new ‘highly-infected’ zones in the last 15 days, reporting 220 cases in the last fortnight. “We will be continuing with the strategy of micro- containment zones, sealing buildings or partially locking down areas where COVID-19 cases are found, instead of shutting off the entire area,” Mr. Gaikwad said.
Meanwhile, 234 new cases were reported from Pune district on Tuesday as the cumulative case tally (including deaths and recoveries) rose to 12,919, said authorities. With eight new deaths, the district’s death toll has climbed to 535.
However, Pune Divisional Commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar said only 4,259 of the total cases were active, while more than 8,125 people had been discharged across the district, whose recovery rate had increased to 62.89%. Along with Pune’s total fatalities, the total death toll in Pune division — which includes the districts of Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur along with Pune — has now risen to 745.
Pune division’s total case tally stood at 16,469 of whom only 5,269 were active cases while10,455 people in the division have been discharged thus far, said Dr. Mhaisekar. A total 264 people are critical. Solapur reported 24 new cases taking the district’s tally to 1,811. However, only 655 of these were active, with 996 persons discharged so far. With eight fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, Solapur’s death tally stands at 160.
“Satara has reported 21 new cases to take the district’s total tally to 766. Of these, the number of active patients has come down to 171 with 560 recoveries thus far. The district has reported one fatality today to take the total death toll to 35,” Dr. Mhaisekar said.
Kolhapur reported only one new case to take its total tally to 726 of whom only 74 are active while as many as 644 have been discharged till date. The district has reported eight deaths thus far.
