TS Covid data fails to present true picture
Cases rising rapidly but govt not setting up containment zones
During the past three weeks, Medchal-Malkajgiri district, abutting Hyderabad city, has witnessed 2,832 new Covid-19 cases.
In this same period, Jayashankar- Bhupalapally district has seen 346 new cases, BhadradriKothagudem has seen 1,629 new cases, while Vikarabad, not very far from Hyderabad district, has seen 373 cases, and Yadadri-Bhongir district, also close to the city, has seen 1,048 new Covid-19 cases.
However, what is inexplicable to say the least, is that the daily Covid-19 bulletins released by the Telangana health department, have steadfastly maintained that none of these four districts apparently require any containment zones, locations where new Covid-19 cases are found and are cordoned off to prevent the spread of the disease to other areas.
For the past three weeks, beginning August 22, the bulletins have been maintaining that MedchalMalka jg iri,Y ada dr iB hong ir,Bh ad radri
Kothagudem, Jayas-hankar-Bhupalapally, and Vikarabad districts in Telangana have had not a single containment zone set up despite new cases being discovered daily in alarming numbers.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that the Covid-19 bulletins issued every day by the state, have mystified rather than clarified the reality on the ground with respect to the disease.
It may be recalled that the Telangana High Court had, several times, pulled up the state government over Covid-19 details provided in the bulletin.
In addition to preventing those infected by the coronavirus from moving about freely, according to the Indian council for medical research (ICMR), all people living in containment zones are to be mandatorily tested for Covid-19, which makes the establishment of containment zones a vital part of the disease control measures.
Incidentally, over the past few months, after setting up containment zones by cordoning off neighbourhoods during the initial phases of the lockdown, the state had been designating individual homes too as containment zones.
For instance, if a member of a family, or more than one, living in an apartment tests positive, only that apartment is considered a containment 'zone', though the rest of those living in the same building can officially be treated as being outside of the zone.