Explainer: What is the COVID-19 containment strategy of the government?﻿
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 16, 2020
As we enter the 2nd phase of a nation-wide lockdown, certain relaxations have been announced from 20 April outside the containment zones. What are these containment zones? What is the strategy of the government? Here is a detailed explainer.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of lockdown in the countrytill 03 May 2020 while addressing the nation for the fourth time amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. India has been underlockdown since 25 March 2020. While lockdown is aimed at containing the spread ofvirus & prevent community transmission, there are other containmentmeasures taken by Central and State governments at the local level depending onlevels of transmission & detection of positive cases in these areas. In hisspeech, the PM also added that from 20 April onwards, restrictions in somelow-risk areas will be eased.
It is possible that one may have come across the term Stage-IItransmission, community transmission, and other similar terms in news andsocial media. But what is community transmission? What are the different stagesof transmission? Which stage is India currently in?
Ministry of Health has adopted a scenario-based
approach for containing the virus
As per the containment plan of the Ministry of Health, India is following ascenario-based approach for containing the virus. These different possible scenarios,or the four stages of transmission are-
Stage I -Travel related cases reported in India
Stage II – Local transmission of COVID-19
Stage III – Large outbreaks amenable to containment
Stage IV – Wide-spread Community transmission
Stage V – India becomes an endemic for the disease.
As is evident, Stage I refers to travel related cases, meaning, thosewho have contacted the virus due to their travel to one of the centers/placesof the outbreak. Local transmission or stage II is said to have taken place when thesource of infection is within the reporting location. An example is contactwith an infected person. At this stage, tracing all those persons who came incontact with the infected person, isolating and testing them will be helpful incontaining the virus at this stage.
Community transmission is when the spread is such that source of viruscannot be traced as there are numerous cases in public. Stage V or India as anendemic is said to have taken place when the outbreak is so rampant that thereis stark increase in number of infections and number of deaths and the diseaseis considered an endemic in the country.
WHO has defined
four categories of transmission
Similarly, the World Health Organization has defined four different categories of transmission which is used at national andsub-national levels. These are
Many countries in the Americas & Europe are at the
stage of community transmission
WHO’s COVID Situation Report as on 14 April 2020, shows that countries like Turkey, Switzerland,Indonesia, Iran, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, and more are at the CommunityTransmission Stage or the most affected stage. It can be observed that majorityof the countries in the Region of Americas (North America and South America)are also at the community transmission level along with many Europeancountries.
India falls under the category of ‘Clusters of cases’
Asian and Western Pacific Region have more countries falling in the‘Clusters of Cases’ category. This includes China, South Korea, India, SriLanka, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Singapore, Australia amongother countries. The data from some countries like UK, Germany, and Italy was pending.
New Zealand, Nepal, Bhutan, and some other countries are in the categoryof ‘sporadic cases’. Many countries in the African sub-continent fall underthis category. No country falls under the ‘No cases’ category indicating thevirus has spread to all countries.
As already seen, India falls in the category of ‘cluster of cases’. TheCentral Government has chalked out a cluster containment strategy to contain the virus and its spread in India as the number of cases is increasing.
What does a cluster mean?
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, a clusteris defined as ‘an unusual aggregation of health events that are groupedtogether in time and space and that are reported to a health agency.’ Insimpler terms, a cluster means the occurrence of a disease in a geographicalarea at some period. This is reported to the health departments.
What is the cluster containment strategy?
Cluster containment strategy aims to contain the disease within theparticular area through ‘early detection, breaking the chain and thuspreventing its spread to new areas’.
For this, containment zones will be identified. The cluster will beconsidered the epicentre. Listing and mapping of contacts will be carried outby the local Rapid Response Team. Around the containment zone, a buffer zone ofadditional 5 kilometres radius is also set up. Buffer zone is where there ispossibility for new cases to appear. Movement of people into and outside thezones will be highly regulated and vehicular movement is also restricted. Allroads connecting the zones will be blocked and guarded by police.
Based on the size and area of cluster, the buffer zone can vary-
The area will be quarantined with boundaries set up. Only essentialservices are permitted in these zones. There will be continuous activesurveillance in these areas. All suspected cases will be tested. Isolation ofcases, home quarantine of contacts, and social distancing measures will beensured. Testing for Influenza like Illnesses and Severe Acute RespiratorySyndrome (SARS) will also be carried out in such areas. Such a containmentmeasure was earlier used in Rajasthan to contain the Zika Virus.
Districts to be categorized into three depending on
cases reported
As a part of the containment strategy, in a high level review meetingheld on 15 April 2020 held by the Cabinet Secretary with all the ChiefSecretaries, Health Secretaries, DGPs, District Collectors, MunicipalCommissioners, SPs, CMOs and other officials of States/UTs, the Central Governmentannounced that each district in the country will be divided into one of the following categories–
In addition to classification of districts, government has also askeddistricts to classify hospitals into COVID Care Centres for mild cases, COVIDHealth Centres for clinical moderate cases which require oxygen support, andCOVID dedicated hospitals for severe and critical cases which require ventilatorsupport.
Certain activities to resume depending on intensity of
the disease & location
The Ministry of Home Affairs issued fresh guidelines on 15 April 2020 that included details on partial relaxationof lockdown from 20 April, as announced by the Prime Minister in his address.In this order, the government has announced that some economic activities can be resumed ifproper social distancing is followed by the officials and employees. It has tobe noted that such relaxations are only for areas in the non-containment zones.
Here are few important takeaways from the order:
Post April 20, based on intensity of outbreak in different areas, thefollowing activities will be allowed:
In case of private and commercial establishments, the following arepermitted
The following will continue to be restricted:
Featured Image: COVID-19 containment strategy