IT Correspondent
Mumbai, May 15:
The Maharashtra government has decided to extend the lockdown in Mumbai, Pune and other COVID-19 hotspots until May 31 and reduce containment zones in Mumbai, to ease burden on the staff.
The decision to extend the lock down was arrived at in a meeting held on Thursday morning that was attended by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar among other state cabinet ministers. Aurangabad, Solapur and Malegaon among other hotspots will also come under the extended lockdown. The notification about this will be issued shortly.
As per the revised guidelines being worked out to ease lock down, from 18 May onwards, the stand lone shops engaged in mobile repairs, repairs to electric and electronics goods, stationery etc will be allowed to remain open. Similarly grocery shops, chemists’ shops, will be allowed to remain open, subject to strict implementation of “physical distancing” norms. However cinema houses, restaurants, malls will continue to remain closed.
In the meanwhile the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to reduce containment zones to reduce burden on civic staff and police. As of now there are 2,643 containment zones in Mumbai and even if a single positive patient is found in a building, the entire area is declared as containment zone and it is barricaded. Now instead of sealing the entire area will not be barricaded after the patient is shifted to BMC’s isolation ward. At present several teams of BMC and police officials are deployed to inspect containment zones. If smaller containment zones are clubbed, less manpower will be required.
In case of housing societies, the plan is to mark out a large area as containment zone only if there are many buildings near each other which have positive cases. In case one building in a large housing society has a positive case, the complex may be marked as containment zone. But those on the field can assess the situation and find out if those from other buildings can be sent out. At present the corona positive is kept in the isolation ward for 14 days. Now the BMC is planning to reduce this period to 7 days. This was decided in a meeting which BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal had with BMC group leaders.
The BMC has also decided not to conduct COVID 19 test during discharge for those with mild symptoms. In case of asymptomatic patients, the laboratories have been directed to test only those identified by fever clinics or outpatient sections of private and government hospitals. The testing will be mandatory only for critical patients. The laboratories have been asked to report all positive cases immediately, within one hour of results so that contact-tracing may be initiated at the earliest.
Further, the BMC has said that no emergency surgery can be denied to patients by the doctors for want of COVID -19 testing. In the context of not denying urgent surgeries, the BMC circular has stated, “Only if there is a strong suspicion of Covid-19 in persons requiring elective surgery or surgery which can wait for 48 hours, a doctor can ask for Covid-19 test. No emergency surgeries should be denied to the patient for want of Covid-19 test.”
The BMC has also allowed home testing in emergency cases. BMC, in a circular, said that it is issuing revised guidelines of testing by superseding all earlier circulars in light of the government of India and the state government issuing their revised discharge policy as per the categorisation of patients.
BMC’s circular stated, “Testing of mild/very mild /pre-symptomatic cases shall not be required before the discharge if there are no symptoms seen on seventh, eighth and ninth days consecutively. In case of moderate symptomatic patients, testing shall not be required if the patient is recovered clinically.
