What are the steps being taken to prevent further escalation of the crisis in Indore?
We have a strict curfew-based lockdown in place with only medicine shops open and people being allowed access only on foot. We have developed containment zones in 90 localities where positive cases were found. Extensive screening is being carried out by 400 teams. We are also going for institutional quarantining of high-risk contacts of positive patients.
It was said that enough sampling and testing was not done, at least initially.
No, we are carrying out very aggressive sampling and testing. We are doing almost 600 tests per million residents. By April 10, as many as 2,560 tests were completed. We have done more sampling and testing than the whole of West Bengal (2,095). One of the reasons for the high number of cases in Indore is the high rate of sampling and testing.
Do you think this strategy of strict lockdown and aggressive sampling-testing is enough?
These are the standard and best protocols, which we are following quite strictly. We are also doing community sampling—about 50 samples of suspected patients are collected every day from OPDs where [asymptomatic] patients come.
It was pointed out that non-government sectors were not involved in the prevention strategy.
We developed the protocol of having three categories of hospitals—green for non-Covid-19 patients, yellow for suspected patients and red for confirmed cases—in consultation with the private sector. It is not like we not taking anyone into confidence. But we are not getting as much support as we would like to have. We have started positing monitoring teams in hospitals to see that proper treatment is given. We are in constant dialogue with the non-government sectors.
How are essentials provided to the people during strict lockdown?
Milk is provided at their doorsteps with the support of the milk federation. For groceries, we have tied up with about 530 local grocery stores. Garbage vehicles personnel take the orders on pre-printed forms and grocery is delivered home by the stores. We are also providing 50,000 cooked food packets and about 10,000 packets of ration to the needy every day.