Red Zone districts: Bengal saw highest rise, TN sharpest fall

New Delhi, May 02: With the new classification by the Centre, there has been a significant increase and decrease in the number of red zones in various districts.

The total number of red zone districts decreased by 40 when compared to April 15. However, seven states saw a rise in the number. In West Bengal, the number rose from 4 to 10.

Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, saw the biggest fall in number of red zone districts. Out of the 22 that were earlier classified as red zones, 13 have now been removed from the list.

However, three have been added to the list as well making the tally 12.
The government has listed 130 districts as hotspots of the coronavirus disease. The number of hotspot districts is down from 170.

The Health Ministry removed 92 districts from the 170 that it had classified as coronavirus hotspots on April 15. It, however, added 52 new districts to the list. Currently, there are 130 red zones in the total 733 districts in the country.

The fresh classification to be followed by all states and Union Territories for a week from May 3, 284 districts have been identified as orange zones. This number is up from 207 districts. The Health Ministry classified Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad as red zones due to the high case loads and clusters.

Joint secretary, health ministry, Lav Agarwal said that this time, they had broadened the criteria. The areas have been labelled also keeping in mind the fact that these should not become potential hotspots if relaxations are given as per the green zone criteria.

There are some places in the green zones but their proximity to areas where case load is high makes them vulnerable and hence those areas have also been designated as red or orange zones in the new list, Agarwal also said.

The red zones will be defined by taking into account the total number of active cases, the doubling rate of infections, extent of testing and surveillance feedback. In order to qualify as a green zone, an area would have had to report no new infections for three weeks. The classification will be dynamic and updated at least weekly as conditions change, Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said.