The Kalaburagi district administration that has been working on a war footing after the district reported India’s first COVID-19 casualty completed a survey of 7,722 houses by Monday evening.
Most of the houses are located in two containment zones – one around the residence of the 76-year-old man (now codenamed as P6) who died on March 10 and later tested positive for COVID-19 on March 12 and the other around the residence of the 63-year-old doctor (now codenamed as P9) who had treated the former. The number of houses surveyed stood at 6,018 on Saturday.
Presently, there are 99 primary contacts who had direct contact with the three persons (including a 45-year-old woman who was the primary contact of P6) who tested positive for the disease and 388 secondary contacts of the infected persons in the district. The number of identified foreign returnees has risen from 337 on Saturday to 408 on Monday.
The number of home-quarantined persons has risen from 811 on Saturday to 876 on Monday. Of the 36 samples, 24 tested negative and results are awaited in seven cases. Two samples could not be tested due to technical reasons.
As precautionary measures, Deputy Commissioner B. Sharat has issued a series of orders, including one under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He has put the district on a lockdown for the last one week ordering closure of all the business and trade establishments, excluding those that offer essential commodities and services, and banning all events, public and private that could attract people in large numbers.
Helpline
Mr. Sharat appealed to the people who had recently returned from COVID-19 affected countries to voluntarily undergo home-quarantine for 14 days and inform the district administration.
He also appealed to the people to use COVID-19 helpline 104 and 08472-268648 or the control room (08472-278648/ 278698 / 278604/ 278677) to inform the administration if they or anybody else develop symptoms such as cold, cough, fever, headache and respiratory illness.
