The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) has started organising special camps for Covid tests in areas from where more cases are being reported.
In the last three days, camps were held in Kalikapur market, Muchibazar in Ultadanga, Mukundapur market and Azadgarh market in Golf Green. A camp for RT-PCR tests is scheduled to be held at Santoshpur market on Monday.
CMC officials said the tests were being held in the markets because more people assembled there. Ward coordinators were sending requests to the CMC’s health department for the camps.
“We are now doing about 800 Covid tests (RT-PCR) every day, up from about 600 we were doing a fortnight back,” said a senior official of the CMC.
CMC officials, however, said the response from people was very lukewarm compared to what it was when such camps were held last year or during
the second wave earlier this year.
CMC is deploying two mobile vehicles to collect the swab samples from places the special camps are being held. This apart, there are 16 static Covid testing centres in Calcutta.
On Saturday, Firhad Hakim, the chairperson of the CMC’s board of administrators, said he would speak to Pallab Das, the chairman-in-council of Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality, and urge him to open the markets in Sonarpur. All markets under the municipality were shut for three days from October 28 because of a spike in cases.
Hakim said a large number of people from Sonarpur and Rajpur were flocking the markets in Garia and Mukundapur within the Calcutta municipal areas bordering the Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality.
“This could lead to a spike in cases in these areas.”