Health Ministry asks states to categorise zones into red, orange and green, identify containment and buffer zones

After MHA’s guidelines of Lockdown 4.0, The Health Ministry has directed states to initiate the categorisation of red, orange and green zones. The lockdown has now been extended till May 31.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has directed all States and Union Territories (UTs) to initiate necessary action in terms of categorisation of red, orange and green zones, and delineation of containment and buffer zones. “States may categorise districts/municipal corporations as red/orange/green zones. States may, however, also chose to categorize a sub-division/ward or any other appropriate administrative unit as red/orange/green zone after detailed analysis at their end, duly taking into consideration the geographical spread of cases, contacts and their zone of influence in terms of disease spread,” read the letter from Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan to all Chief Secretaries of States and Administrators of UT’s.

The Union Health Secretary further described in the letter, that the parameters such as total active COVID-19 cases, active cases per lakh population, doubling rate calculated over seven days period, case fatality rates and sample positivity rate for the states and UTs, should be taken into consideration while categorising areas into red, orange or green zones.

The letter further read, “The most important task, once the zones are identified is field action in terms of implementation of Containment Plan of Action. Guidelines in this regard have already been made available to the states…This entails identification of Containment Zones and Buffer Zones inside red/orange zones, from where cases have been primarily reported.”

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