The Centre on Saturday asked the States and Union Territories to maintain a strict watch on the Covid-19 situation with focussed district-level measures for containment of clusters of new cases as it drew their attention towards eight districts reporting over 10 per cent infection positivity rate and at least 19 registering positivity rates between 5 and 10 per cent in the last two weeks.
It said that eight districts in three States—Kerala, Mizoram and Sikkim and at least 19 districts in Kerala, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Puducherry, Manipur, West Bengal and Nagaland have been reporting positivity rates above 10 per cent and between five and 10 per cent respectively in the last two weeks.
In a letter to states and union territories (UTs), Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, “Thus, these 27 districts need to be monitored very closely.”
He said that in this context, it is imperative for states and UTs to maintain a strict watch on the situation with focussed district level measures for containment of clusters of new Covid-19 cases.
"In case of any district reporting a surge in cases, or rise in positivity rates, intensive action and local containment as per the containment framework must be initiated," Bhushan said.
"The strategic containment interventions in identified areas with test positivity rate of over 10 per cent or over 60 per cent bed occupancy on either two supported or ICU beds, include night curfews, restricting intermingling of people, prohibition of congregations (social, political, sports, entertainment, academic, cultural, religious, festival-related), curtailment of attendees in marriages and funerals or last rites, etc," he said.
Testing and surveillance interventions include ramping up testing and active case search, testing of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases through rapid antigen tests (RAT) and retesting by RTPCR of symptomatic RAT negative tests, the secretary said.
"Strict adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour at all places and at all times must also be rigorously enforced and aggressively monitored," Bhushan said.