Narsingdi district administration on Thursday declared two wards, South and North Birampur under Madhabdi municipality, as red zones and has locked them down to prevent transmission of Covid-19.
These are the second and third localities after East Rajabazar, ward 27 of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), to be locked down following the new zoning system to control the spread of coronavirus.
On Thursday, DGHS published guidelines for the new lockdown strategy of marking an area red, yellow, or green.
Narsingdi Sadar Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Taslima Akter said the lockdown began effectively from early Friday.
All the guidelines are being followed to execute the lockdown, which includes providing food supply and medical services, as no one is allowed to go outside their home, she added.
The UNO said they have a database where all the families are listed and a volunteer team is tagged with each family, so they can get all kinds of support from home.
A control room is set up in the locked-down areas and a magistrate is deployed to ensure law and order. Moreover, police and civil surgeon representatives are also deployed to execute the lockdown.
Why Narsingdi wards are under lockdown?
Bangladesh began zone-wise lockdown from Tuesday night on a pilot basis, in line with a plan devised earlier this month that divided areas affected by Covid-19 around the country into three zones, based on the severity of the pandemic.
Earlier, Narsingdi district administration drafted the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for districts, as a model to be followed across Bangladesh for lockdown.
The decision was taken after the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 deemed it necessary to impose complete lockdown across larger areas based on the number of infected to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Hotspots with the highest number of cases will be marked as red zones, areas with a limited number of cases will be designated yellow zones, and green zones will be areas with zero confirmed cases in the last 21 days, according to the government plan.
Red zones will face the heaviest restrictions, and the designation of an area will change as the number of patients goes down.
Earlier, Sadar and Begumganj upazilas under Noakhali district was declared as red zones and put under lockdown till June 23.
Narayanganj district administration also designated three areas under the city corporation — Amlapara, Jamtola, and Fatullah’s Rupayan Town — as Red Zones and put them under lockdown recently.
On Friday, Bangladesh’s total number of confirmed cases crossed 81,500 mark and the death toll rose to 1,095 with a record daily surge in both death and infections from Covid-19.
