As the 21-day lockdown period is set to end on April 14, various states are battling challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in innovative ways. In Hyderabad, the impact of the lockdown on delivery of essential items and strict vigil on COVID-19 cases have kept the state administration, especially the state police, on its toes. THE WEEK spoke to Hyderabad City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar who said that from a general approach, the city police has narrowed down and prioritised identifying primary, secondary and tertiary contacts of people who tested positive for COVID-19. Excerpts:
Q. What is the focus of the city police right now?
The police in Hyderabad, which has a population of more than one crore, has prioritised identifying primary, secondary and tertiary contacts of people who tested positive, and ensuring the supply of essential items.
Q. How is the police ensuring that the supply chain of essential items is maintained?
By loading the essentials from Maharashtra, Karnataka and even Tamil Nadu borders and transporting these to the warehouses which are located 10-15km away from the Hyderabad city, ensuring unloading of the same and then bringing them to the stockists— around 400 of them are in the city. We also reach these to the retailers and from them to the people. We track the movements of vehicles. An officer in the rank of joint commissioner of police with a team of 35 officers are working round-the-clock to ensure
smooth supply of essentials in Hyderabad.
In Hyderabad, 21 tonnes of vegetables are consumed daily; we have managed to maintain daily supply of 17-18 tonnes so far. We have not received many reports of scarcity.
Q. How are you ensuring enforcement of lockdown ?
Enforcement of lockdown is a major challenge. Despite many attempts to create awareness, many people are not serious about it. We have been booking many cases.
The safety of our police officers is also important, and we have distributed masks, sanitizers and soaps to each and every police station in Hyderabad city. Besides, patrol vehicles and bikes are sanitised daily.
Q. How are you handling issues cropping up in hospitals where suspected patients are not cooperating with doctors?
We are in touch with all hospitals, especially Gandhi Hospital where recently a COVID-19 patient had slapped a doctor, which led to doctors threatening to stage a strike. Following this incident, we have posted officers, on every floor, every ward.
It is important to ensure hospitalisation of infected patients, so that the disease does not spread, and for this we are taking the help of neighbours to keep track of the suspected patients. There are certain cases where people have not informed about their visits to various places. This is not the time to hide infection as it adds to the challenges.
Q. What is the strategy as far as primary, secondary and tertiary infections are concerned?
So far, for all the positive cases that have come to our notice, we have identified 875 primary contacts. We are watching them. Some of them are under home quarantine and others under institutional quarantine. These people are not infected but they were in touch with people who tested positive.
There are 539 secondary contacts, and none of them have been infected. Of these,
443 are under home quarantine and others under institutional quarantine.
As far as tertiary contacts are concerned, we have identified 204 people and we are going through a process to keep track of them.
Q. How has the social distancing fared in Hyderabad city?
There are some places in Hyderabad from where we received a few complaints of people not maintaining social distancing, like the Ramnagar fish market, Bholakpur area, and these fall under the Nallakunta police station. We had to take action and book cases against some people, because despite a lot of persuasion, they had not been following social distancing norms.
Since certain hospitals have been earmarked for treatment of COVID-19, general patients who were going to these hospitals are going to other hospitals. Because of this there is increased load of general patients in hospitals like Osmania General Hospital in Afzal Gunj.
Q. How have the people coped with difficulties during this period?
Ever since the enforcement of lockdown, the traffic police of Hyderabad have booked more than 10,000 cases of violation of lockdown. As many as 850 vehicles were seized, and 55 autos have been seized in the last three days.
The COVID-19 Helpline, which has been set up by Hyderabad city police exclusively for movement of essentials, received 51 calls on a single day regarding shortages and all these issues were resolved through coordination with various agencies. Most of these 51 calls were related to food issues, medical problems and ration problems.
Similarly, we have a separate COVID-19 Helpline on WhatsApp because these days WhatsApp has become one of the most popular platforms for sending messages. On a single day, we got 545 messages and most of them were related to issues of medical supplies. Each and every message was read and addressed. So far, 2346 people have benefited through this.
