Amid recording a high number of Covid-19 positive cases in the city, the Karnataka state government has said that the standard operating procedure of declaring wards that report positive cases of Coronavirus a containment will be replaced by sealing just the houses where cases are reported in the city.
The Bengaluru Bruhat Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) BBMP will be issuing an order soon to shed light on this new turn of events. As cases rise in Bengaluru and the state government unlocks, there are challenged that the administration is facing with the current mode of operation. However, it's unclear what this would mean for the city.
Bengaluru will see no more containment zones, only houses of infected people to be sealed
The pandemic is still very much on in India. However, state governments around the country have decided to slowly unlock states and relax restrictions. Even as the government does this, cases are continuing to rise in the country. Karnataka too has been witnessing a growth in cases.
Bengaluru has reported 308 cases yesterday alone. Now, the BBMP in a new move has said that it will depart from the standard procedure of declaring entire wards where a Coronavirus case is detected, a containment zone. The administrative body cites logistical challenges in the near future as the state unlocks.
Originally, BBMP had to declare a ward a containment zone if a positive case was reported in the ward. Following this, the rules were changed to a containment zone being the street of an infected person's independent home and if they live in an apartment, three floors — one above, one below and the floor of the infected person.
BBMP commissioner BH Anil Kumar in a conversation with TOI said, "There have been discussions on containing only a single home and spare the rest of the road and ward. The containment zone regulation is evolving." He added that Bengaluru poses different scenarios compared to Mumbai or Chennai and that it would be difficult to seal a whole street or locality and inconvenience residents as the lockdown restrictions are relaxed.
The order marking these changes is still awaited. In such a case, the responsibility then lies with an individual in maintaining social distancing norms and following rules which seems to be the need of the hour.
