Covid cases are back in the twin townships. The state health department has started a survey to detect any spike in the number of Covid-19 cases across the state and both Salt Lake and New Town are under the scanner as more than 10 active cases have been reported from these areas in the past week.
The sentinel surveillance is an attempt by the health department to map out current coronavirus trends at a time when the number of active cases is at an all-time low. According to figures given by the department only 31 fresh cases were reported from across the state on Wednesday.
The survey takes into findings those who have tested positive in the past one week and data of positive patients is gathered from both government-run as well as private testing laboratories, an official of the state health department said.
According to the official, colour codes have been assigned to zones according to the number of Covid-19 cases reported in one week. Three colour codes have been used — while pink denotes a zone or an area with over 10 cases, black is for less than five cases and green is for zero or only one case in the respective blocks, municipalities or municipal corporations.
According to the health official, while Salt Lake has reported 11 cases in the past one week New Town had 12 in the same time period, due to which they have been classified under the pink zone.
A public health expert however warned that the data was based on test reports only and there is a trend among people of not getting their tests done even if they display symptoms.
A doctor, who runs a clinic in Salt Lake, said that although the number of Covid cases was on the decline, the number of people with flu-like symptoms has shot up owing to the extreme heat-wave like conditions prevailing in the city till recently.
“Several are down with flu-like symptoms and many are skipping even prescribed Covid-19 tests thinking that they can ride it through as they have been vaccinated” said Bimal Chandra Kundu, a physician who has his practice in Sector V and AH block.
Banibrata Banerjee, the mayoral council member in charge of health at Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, said the numbers were not high enough to cause alarm and that they were administering all doses including boosters from the vaccine clinics run by the civic body.
“We are aggressively conducting vaccination drives. We are focusing on all age groups but especially children and are even sending vaccines and trained staff to schools across Salt Lake and Rajarhat. We are sending teams to houses of the elderly or immobile to administer vaccines too,” said Banerjee.