The newly appointed District Magistrate of Noida, Suhas L.Y., sealed the Cease Fire Private Limited on Tuesday. The fire safety firm is directly or indirectly responsible for 29 COVID-19 infected persons in Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, and Bareilly. On Tuesday, another employee of the factory tested positive in Duhai village of Ghaziabad. Sanjeevani Hospital of Greater Noida was also sealed after a person was found infected with the virus in the hospital.
After transferring the District Magistrate, the State government named A.K. Chaturvedi, the State Immunisation Officer, as the nodal officer of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad. He has superseded the Chief Medical Officers of the two districts.
In Ghaziabad, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inspected the preparations at Santosh Medical College before changing his programme. He was expected to visit Meerut and Agra as well, but as the news of COVID-19 in the centre of Tablighi Jamat in Delhi’s Nizamuddin spread, he flew back to Lucknow.
Isolation wards
Ramping up its efforts to deal with the virus, the Ghaziabad administration has acquired sections of five major hospitals, including four private ones, in the city for the creation of 405 isolations beds, an official release said. District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey has acquired these hospitals under the Disaster Management Act and the Essential Services (Maintenance) Act.
The hospitals are ESI Hospitals in Sahibabad (30 beds), New Sarvodaya Hospital (100) in Kavi Nagar, Flores Hospital (75) in Vijay Nagar, Narinder Mohan Hospital (100) in Mohan Nagar and Max Hospital (100) in Vaishali.
The district administration is also planning to acquire three hotels in the city for developing quarantine facilities.
14 quarantined
Meanwhile, in Deoband, 14 members of Tablighi Jamaat, including 12 Indonesians, have been quarantined in Jamia Tibbia isolation centre in the town. “They were living in a mosque in Rajopur village since March 6,” said Kamlesh Kumar, Tehsildaar, Deboand.
He said the other two persons who have been isolated are from Assam. Their connection with the centre in Nizamuddin is being ascertained. In a related development, Darul Uloom Deoband has offered one of its buildings for the development of isolation ward for COVID-19 cases. In a letter written to the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Darul Uloom Mohatmim (Vice-Chancellor) has offered the seminary’s building near the state highway for the purpose.
