According to the latest list of containment zones shared by Greater Chennai Corporation, the city has 233 barricaded containment areas. Royapuram (zone five) has 55 barricaded lanes and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar (zone 6) comes second with 49 containment areas. Tondiarpet (zone four) has 25 barricaded areas.
As of 8.00 am on Friday, the three zones - Tondiarpet, Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar - put together have 359 active cases, 10 deaths and 117 recoveries. Till April 30, these three zones have reported 486 cases so far. On May 1, this number increased as the city had 176 more cases, bringing the total to 1082 cases.
Chennai Corporation officials say that there are five major COVID-19 clusters in the city and district as a whole. This includes those who returned from foreign countries, Tablighi Jamaat conference attendees, journalists who have contracted infections, a group of people who conducted Sunday prayers in a house in Thiru Vi ka Nagar and the emerging Koyambedu market cluster.
Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash during his press meet on Friday reasoned why these three zones that makeup North Chennai have the biggest concentration of COVID-19 cases in the city. “These are densely populated areas and therefore there are more chances of transmission. We cannot completely curb people’s movements and so we are enforcing social distancing norms,” he said.
On being asked if the increase in number of cases was also a result of more testing in Chennai, the Commissioner explained. “We have to consider two things. Population is high in Chennai we can say it has one crore population easily. The population density too is high since this one crore population is living under 400 sq km area. In some areas the population density is 26,000 persons per sq km whereas in areas like north Chennai it could be 50 to 60,000 per sq km. Therefore transmission is a natural phenomenon.”
These containment areas across the city have been demarcated on different dates and when these zones successfully complete 28 days under isolation without reporting any new COVID-19 case, then the containment norms are relaxed in that particular area.
Accordingly, Madura Vasal Street and Davidson Street in Royapuram zone, Varadarajanpettai in Choolaimedu (zone nine), Venugopal Street in Saidapet (zone 10), Ellaimamman Koil Street in Kotturpuram (zone 13), Nehru street in Kalkutti, Perungidi (zone 14) and MGR Nagar in Paniyur (zone 15) will be removed from the containment zone list on May 2 for having completed 28 days without reporting fresh cases of infection.
The Chief Minister on Wednesday announced that the six highly affected zones in Chennai - Tondiarpet (zone 4), Royapuram (zone 5), Thiru-Vi-Ka Nagar (zone 6), Anna Nagar (zone 8), Teynampet (zone 9) and Kodambakkam (zone 10) - will have an exclusive one Field Support Team (FST) assigned to each zone to monitor containment measures.
Adding that only a few wards in a particular zone tended to have more number of cases, Corporation Commissioner said, “To control it, each zone has a team consisting of IAS officer, IPS officer, DRO and medical officer that is working on containment measures. We are studying the pattern and we have come up with new strategies that we will discuss with the government.”
In addition to identifying community volunteers to deliver essentials to the elderly and the vulnerable members within the containment zone, Corporation Commissioner also added that from May 1, extra sanitising vehicles have been deployed in the three zones.
The following is the list of demarcated containment zones in the city
Here's the updated list of Containment Zones in #Chennai. (1/2)#Covid19Chennai#GCC #Chennai#ChennaiCorporation pic.twitter.com/oU9dp5y2ud
— Greater Chennai Corporation (@chennaicorp) May 1, 2020
Here's the updated list of Containment Zones in #Chennai. (2/2)#Covid19Chennai#GCC #Chennai#ChennaiCorporation pic.twitter.com/aTXQwflEkB
— Greater Chennai Corporation (@chennaicorp) May 1, 2020