Centre advises 14-day lockdowns in cities, districts with over 10% positivity, 60% bed occupancy

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 25 

Amid an alarming COVID 19 surge, the Centre on Sunday advised stringent containment and lockdown measures in districts reporting either more than 10 per cent positivity rate over the last one week or more than 60 per cent occupancy of beds supported by oxygen or in ICU.

Warning the states that the existing infrastructure may not be able to cope with the ongoing surge, the Ministry of Health said on Sunday that there was an urgent need for states to consider strict COVID management and control measures in surge areas to break the chain of transmission.

“Prompt and targeted action needs to be focused on specific districts, cities, areas to flatten the current curve of the epidemic which may be identified by states. Districts where test positivity has been more than 10 pc for the past week or bed (oxygen supported or ICU bed) occupancy has been over 60 pc must be considered for taking intensive action and local containment measures,” said the Centre asking states to prohibit social, religious and political gatherings in areas of high surge. It also advised closure of gyms, spas, restaurants and religious places in such areas.

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The Centre said containment should focus on restricting intermingling of people for 14 days to break the chain of transmission.

“Classification of districts requiring intensive action and local containment is also to be undertaken by the state on a weekly basis and may be made available online, besides being given due publicity in the media,” Health Ministry said adding that areas requiring intensive action and local containment can be cities, towns, parts of the towns, district headquarters, semi-urban localities, municipal wards, panchayats.

Centre said local containment must focus on three strategic areas of intervention, which include containment, clinical management and community engagement.