Kolkata has 227 containment zones, North 24 parganas has 57, 56 in Howrah
West Bengal's four coronavirus hotspot districts - Kolkata, North 24 parganas, Howrah and East Midnapore have a total of 348 containment zones, the state government informed today. Kolkata has 227 containment zones, North 24 parganas has 57, 56 in Howrah and 8 in East Midnapore.
This is the first time since the coronavirus crisis erupted that the government has revealed details of all containment zones in these hotspots. Until Monday, the state government had even declined to use the term hotspot for severely affected COVID-19 areas.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee instead used terms like "micromanagement spots" instead of hotspots and had just fired the silence on the details saying revealing then may create panic.
The justification for sharing the details today was people who are in containment zones would be more alert if they knew about it.
Not just hotspots and containment zones, the government also released names of streets and localities that were identified as containment zones.
West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha sad that in 18 of Kolkata's 227 containment zones, there had been no fresh case in the last two weeks. Out of North 24 parganas 57 containment zones, 13 did not see any cases in the last two weeks. In Howrah, too, 13 containment zones were free of the deadly virus for the last fortnight and 5 of the 8 containment zones in East Midnapore had no new case since April 9.
"Our recovery rate at 18% is the same if not better than the national average," Mr Sinha said.
Also, against a national fatality rate of 3.1, West Bengal stood at 2.6 which Mr Sinha claimed validates quality hospital care.
Mr Sinha also added that active cases were mainly concentrated in Kolkata, Howrah and North 24 parganas. Eight districts of the state are COVID-19 free.
West Bengal has 649 active cases with 20 deaths.