The Union Health Ministry on Friday listed 130 districts in the country in the red zone, 284 in the orange zone and 319 in the green zone for a week after May 3, ahead of the extension of the second phase of the nationwide lockdown.
Under this classification, a district will be considered under green zone if there has been no confirmed case of COVID-19 so far or if there is no reported case since last 21 days in the district. Red zones are identified based on total active cases, doubling rate of confirmed cases, extent of testing and district feedback.
Full list of red, orange and green zone districts
Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat are among the States with a heavy COVID-19 load as per the list.
The new classification of districts was announced following a video-conference chaired by the Cabinet Secretary on April 30 with the Chief Secretaries and Health Secretaries of the States.
The classification of districts comes as the country recorded 1,993 new cases of COVID-19, taking the total to 35,365 with a recovery rate of 25.37%.
Since Thursday, 77 deaths were reported, taking the total number of deaths to 1,152, the Ministry said.
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The State Health Departments reported 1,182 deaths with 25,074 active cases out of a total of 35,555 cases. Kerala did not report any new case on Friday.
Identifying pockets
In a letter to the Chief Secretaries of all States and UTs, Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said, “It is important to ensure that we identify pockets of critical interventions for a focused management of COVID -19 at the field level”.
The list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to the States for follow-up action, the letter said.
Ms. Sudan said that in buffer zones, extensive surveillance through monitoring of ILI/SARI (influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infections) cases in health facilities had to be taken up. “The containment zones in districts have to be delineated based on mapping of cases and contacts, geographical dispersion of cases and contacts, areas with well-demarcated perimeters and enforceability.”
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Under the new classification, a district will be considered under green zone if there has been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far or there is no reported case since last 21 days in the district, according to the letter. This shortens the earlier no case time from 28 days.
Till now any red or orange zone districts could become a green zone if no fresh case of coronavirus was reported for 28 and 14 consecutive days respectively.
In the list, all the 11 districts in Delhi have been classified under the red zone hotspots. Uttar Pradesh has 19 districts in the red zone, Maharashtra 14, Tamil Nadu 12, 16 in orange and six in green zone, while Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh nine each.
Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Puducherry and Tripura have no red zone districts.
Speaking at the daily press briefing, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said the country will need to get used to a new normal in terms of maintaining social distancing norms.
He reiterated that for breaking the chain of transmission, hand hygiene, disinfection of surfaces and wearing of masks was crucial. He also said that the Corona tracker app Arogya Setu should be downloaded for self assessment.
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Giving details of the availability of essential medical equipments such as PPEs, mask, gloves and ventilators, Chairman of the Empowered Group-3 P.D. Vaghela said given the high global demand, India is promoting domestic manufacturing and imports are being resorted to only if absolutely necessary.
He noted that the Health Ministry indicated a projected demand of 75, 000 ventilators till June.
“The present availability is about 19,398. An order for 60,884 ventilators have been placed wherein 59,884 ventilators have been ordered to domestic manufacturers and imports are to the tune of 1,000 ventilators. The major domestic players include Bharat Electronics Limited (in collaboration with Skanray) with whom orders for 30,000 ventilators have been placed, AgVa (in collaboration with Maruti Suzuki Limited) with orders for 10,000 ventilators and AMTZ (AP Medtech Zone) with for 13,500 ventilators,” he said. He added that the number of domestic manufacturers have started the delivery.
Dr. Vaghela noted that India is self-sufficient in oxygen and oxygen cylinders. and that the total manufacturing capacity of oxygen is 6,400 MT, of which around 1000 MT is used for medical oxygen.
On Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) , Dr. Vaghela said the total projected demand of PPE kits till June was estimated to be ₹2.01 crore. He added that 107 domestic manufacturers had been identified and facilitated, who have raised their daily production to about 1.87 lakh such kits.
Dr. Vaghela said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has now reached a per day testing level of about 70,000 and has conducted more than 9 lakh tests so far.
“The strategy is to take testing forward as a need based focussed tool. To ensure testing, backend availability of kits, accessories, reagents, etc. is critical. The Central Government has taken on the responsibility of assisting the State Governments with testing kits etc., they are also free to procure, and some of the State Government are also trying to procure their supplies,” he said.
