As Chennai botches up, districts show way – Times of India

In most of Chennai’s 513 containment zones across the 15 zones, lack of cooperation from residents shut inside…Read More

CHENNAI: As Chennai still grapples with scanty containment zone management and spike in the number of positive cases, other districts in the state have succeeded in flattening the curve using effective containment strategy.
In most of Chennai’s 513 containment zones spread across its 15 zones, noncooperation from residents shut inside the zones has been an issue, and it is attributable to poor public relations by Greater Chennai Corporation officials. People are found roaming without wearing masks and they hardly follow social distancing. Officials let small shops, salons, ATMs and even banks to operate inside containment streets. J Radhakrishnan, special Covid-19 officer for GCC, found public toilets located outside containment zones, but being used by residents of the zones and others.
While Chennai botched it up, in districts the public relations machinery remained in touch with the residents of containment zones, extensively using social media, ensuring steady supply of essential goods, introducing total shutdown on Sundays, establishing police checkposts and prevailing upon the locked-in residents to use masks all the time and maintain social distancing whenever they had to step out on essential purposes.
All the 12 wards of Mettupalayam municipality emerged unscathed after 28 days of confinement. No new case was recorded in the areas since April 10. A gateway to the Nilgiris and a main vegetable market for hill station products, it was awareness about the disease that kept people indoors for the entire period. “Even before masks were made compulsory by the district administration, we began wearing masks if we had to step out,” said a resident. The last of the barricade was removed from four areas on Saturday.
J Innocent Divya, the Nilgiris collector, said early containment of the zones helped a lot.
Coimbatore district collector K Rajamani said barricades were off in three of the 26 containment zones in the district. He said ensuring people’s cooperation was maintaining access to essentials. Tirupur collector K Vijaykarthikeyan said perimeter control was strictly maintained and largescale disinfection measures in the containment zone helped.
“We used social media to create awareness among the public. We were the first in the state to enforce complete lockdown on Sundays,” said Cuddalore district collector V Anbuselvan. Officials roped in the newly elected representatives of local bodies to spread awareness.
In Villupuram ,police erected barricades earmarking the containment zones and completely stopped the movement of people. “We established a police post manned by a cop roundthe-clock and public address system was used if people were found violating the norms,” said superintendent of police S Jeyakumar.
Sivaganga district deputy director of health services V Yashoda Mani said containment streets were completely sealed off till the mandatory 28-day period was completed.