Coronavirus: Govt declares 170 districts hotspots, 207 as non-hotspots

New Delhi, Apr 15: Health Ministry on Wednesday said that districts across the country have been divided into hotspots, non-hotspots, and green zone. While 170 districts have been classified as hotspots, a total of 207 districts have been declared as non-hotspots.

Hotspots are the districts where the absolute number of Covid-19 cases reported are high or the rate of growth of positive cases is high. Whereas, non-hotspots are the areas that have reported cases of Covid-19 but the number is limited.

Green zone districts are where no case of novel coronavirus has been reported.

All health services, including AYUSH, hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, telemedicine facilities, dispensaries, chemists, pharmacies as well as all kinds of medicine shops, Jan Aushadhi Kendras and medical equipment shops, will remain functional, according to the new guidelines issued by the Centre a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of the nationwide lockdown till May 3.

"Very strong containment measures will be implemented in the hotspot districts accounting for a large number of COVID-19 cases or with fast growth of cases," a government statement on the guidelines said.

"Only essential services are to be permitted in these zones and strict perimeter control and strict restrictions on movement enforced," it said.

In the hotspots, containment zones will be demarcated by states/union territories/district administration as per the guidelines of the health ministry, it said.

"In these containment zones...There shall be strict perimeter control in the area of the containment zones to ensure that there is no unchecked inward/outward movement of population from these zones except for maintaining essential services (including medical emergencies and law and order related duties) and government business continuity," they said.

The guidelines stated that medical laboratories and collection centres, pharmaceutical and medical research labs, institutions carrying out COVID-19 related research, veterinary hospitals, dispensaries, clinics, pathology labs and sale and supply of vaccine and medicine will remain operational.