How Erode Tamilnadu First Hotspot turned into Green Zone
As tamilnadu continues to reel under more and more new COVID-19 cases in the last few days, Erode district completes 28 days without reporting a new case on wednesday, thus moving into the green zone. The district in total reported 70 cases of COVID-19 till tuesday, of which 69 patients were discharged successfully on recovery. One patient died while undergoing treatment. TNM speaks to district collector C Kathiravan and Superintendent of police S Sakthi Ganesan to understand how the district administration worked to overcome the hurdles that COVID-19 posed. The spotlight fell early on the district as the first two cases of what would later become the ‘Tablighi Jamaat cluster’ were reported from Erode on march 21.
A distinct feature of Erode district’s COVID-19 management strategy was to house all primary and secondary contacts of COVID-19 positive patients in institutional quarantine. Since Erode initially had a spurt of cases, around 18 zones were marked as containment zones. In these zones, the administration made sure that all facilities like vegetables, groceries, ATMs and even clinics were made available at the doorsteps of the residents so that the movement is restricted.
Kathiravan explained “Erode has one big vegetable market Nethaji vegetable market which has around 500 sellers. We moved them all to the central bus stand, since it is a spacious area and told them to not come to sell their vegetables if they have a fever or a cold. We also arranged 150 moving vegetable shops in the Corporation area alone, so that people don’t have to travel till the market. Thus we prevented crowding in market places".