A ward in Kolkata, parts of the Bidhannagar municipal area and some pockets in Rajarhat have been classified as ‘pink’ — where more than 10 new Covid cases have been reported in a week — by the state health department.
The department has started an initiative to categorise places based on Covid numbers in an attempt to detect early signs, if any, of a fresh uptick or surge in cases.
Ward number 144 of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), covering large parts of Behala, has been declared as a pink zone, the worst of three categories. KMC officials said 12 Covid cases were detected in the ward in the past week.
In the area under Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, EE and AH Blocks in Salt Lake and places off VIP Road, including Baguiati and Arjunpur, are pink zones.
In Rajarhat, large parts of Narayanpur, from where 11 Covid cases were reported in the past week, are in the pink category.
The health department has done the mapping after studying the number of Covid cases reported over the past week by district and civic health officials, an official in the department said.
The three categories based on Covid numbers are pink, black and green. Places that see less than five Covid cases in a week are called black zones and the ones that report one or zero cases in a week are green zones.
Banibrata Banerjee, mayoral council member-in-charge of health at Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, said 24 Covid-19 cases were reported from areas under the civic body over the past week.
Six persons have recovered, he said. The number of positive cases on Tuesday was 18.
“We have a population of over 7 lakh people. The number of cases is indeed low but we are not taking any chances and are in regular touch with those who have tested positive and their families. There has been no Covid-19 death in the past one week,” Banerjee told The Telegraph on Tuesday.
The civic body, he said, is closely monitoring the situation and has sent sanitisation teams to the houses where people are in home isolation.
Public health experts said although the numbers were small, one should still be careful. “The vaccination drive is going on at a satisfactory level and we should still wear masks,” said public health expert Abhijit Chowdhury.
