After giving Punjab majority of its Covid-19 cases in the initial days of outbreak, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr) on Thursday managed to shed the ‘hotspot’ tag with no new case reported during the past 28 days.
With this, Nawanshahr has made it to the list of “green” districts, taking the State’s total tally of such districts to four. The other three districts of Bathinda, Tarn Taran, and Fazilka have fortunately remained free from corona cases till date.
In all, nine out of the total 22 districts of the State are now Covid-free. Apart from the four given districts, Moga, Fatehgarh Sahib, Barnala, Roopnagar, and Gurdaspur have no active case as of now. All the patients have been fully recovered and discharged.
Any district that manages to stay free from new Covid-19 infections for 28 days in a row enters the green zone category, which the Centre has designed to earmark the vulnerability of districts depending on number of cases.
Similarly, the districts which register doubling of cases every less than four days are ‘red zone’ hotspot districts, and those with no cases for 14 days are listed among the ‘orange zone’ districts.
As per the Centre’s revised list, Nawanshahr has entered the list of 12 Indian districts that have not seen any new Covid-19 case for 28 days in a row, and listed under ‘green zone’. Besides, Moga, and Muktsar have entered the group of 78 districts with no new cases in 14 days which puts these areas in the ‘orange zone’.
Nawanshahr, which was among the first hotspot district of Punjab, has become the first district, which has witnessed positive cases, to make it to the green zone.
“Nawanshahr is Punjab's turnaround story. From being the initial epicentre, now it has zero cases, thanks to the hard work of District Officers, Healthcare team and other #CoronaWarriors,” tweeted the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday.
In another tweet, he said: “In the long fight against #Covid19, finally we have started to receive good news with Nawanshahr and Moga coming out of this disease. I thank all Punjabis for it is with your co-operation only that we have fared well so far. I am sure together we will triumph in this Mission Fateh!”
Nawanshahr had witnessed the state’s first Covid-19 casualty on March 18, and has reported a total of 19 cases, with the last positive case reported on March 25.
Other than the one death, all 18 patients in the district have been recovered with the latest being the 16-year-old boy Jaskaran, who was discharged on Wednesday.
With 18 active cases at one point of time, SBS Nagar emerged as the coronavirus hotspot. The district’s first case was of 70-year-old granthi from Pathawala village Baldev Singh, who died of cardiac arrest on March 17, and tested positive a day later.
Till then, he had infected many others in his family, among his relatives and friends, spreading over the districts of Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur, and Jalandhar.
Baldev Singh, who had travel history of Germany via Italy, had infected 27 people, of 14 are from his own family including his two-year-old grandson.
Nawanshahr Deputy Commissioner Vinay Bublani attributed the success in containing fresh cases and curing coronavirus patients to people’s support and proper implementation of the containment plan, contact listing and door-to-door surveillance of the district.
Bublani said that the containment plan was implemented effectively in the district, that has a population of about six lakh, and 15 villages were properly sealed to check the spread of coronavirus.