New Delhi: Ahead of the end of the extended lockdown, the Union Health Ministry has listed 130 districts in the country in red zone, 284 in orange zone and 319 in green zone. These have been done on the basis of incidence of cases of COVID-19, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback.
This classification of districts is to be followed by states and Union Territories (UTs) till a week post May 3, when the second phase of lockdown will end, for containment operations. The list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states for further follow-up action.
Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore and Ahmedabad have been designated as red zones in the new classification.
The new classification of districts was announced following a video conference chaired April 30 by the Cabinet Secretary 30 with chief secretaries and health secretaries of states.
In a letter to chief secretaries of all states and UTs, Union Health Ministry 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.”
Sudan said the districts were earlier designated as hotspots/red-zones, orange zones and green zones primarily based on cumulative cases reported and the doubling rate.
“Since recovery rates have gone up, the districts are now being designated across various zones duly broad-basing the criteria. This classification is multi-factorial and takes into consideration incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback to classify the districts,” Sudan said in her letter.
A district will be considered under green zone if there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far or there is no reported case since last 21 days, according to the letter.
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 red zone (hotspots).
Maharashtra has 14 districts in the red zone, 16 in orange and six in green zone, while Gujarat has nine districts in the red zone, 19 in orange and five in green zone.
In Madhya Pradesh, there are nine districts in the red zone, 19 in orange and 24 in the green zone, while Rajasthan has eight, 19 and six districts in the red, orange and green zones respectively.
Uttar Pradesh has 19 districts in the red zone, 36 in orange and 20 in green while Tamil Nadu has 12 districts in the red zone, 24 in the orange and one district in the green zone.
Goa, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram fall under the green zone.
Andhra Pradesh has five districts in red zone, seven in orange and one in green zone while West Bengal has 10, five and eight districts in the red, orange, green zones respectively.
Noting that some states ‘have raised issues on inclusion of certain districts in red-zone’, the secretary highlighted that this is a dynamic list. She said based on field feedback and additional analysis at state level, states may designate additional red or orange zones as appropriate.
“However, states may not relax the zonal classification of districts classified as red/orange as communicated by the ministry,” Sudan said.
PTI
