Some areas of Kushtia to be placed in complete lockdown Thursday

Local administration of Kushtia is set to place eight wards of sadar municipality, Hatosh Haripur union in sadar upazila, seven wards of Bheramara municipality areas and Bahirchar and Chandgram union of the district in complete lockdown from Thursday.

The decision was taken at an emergency meeting of district corona prevention committee on Tuesday, reports news agency UNB.

As the number of coronavirus cases in the district has been increasing for the last 14 days, the local administration has taken the decision to impose ‘red zone’ lockdown in those areas.

Zero tolerance will be shown to those found violating the restrictions.

The lockdown will remain in force in the areas for 21 days.

“We have declared a zero tolerance and the lockdown will be imposed in the designated areas from Thursday strictly,” said Mrinal Kanti Dey, deputy director of local government division.

A total of 243 people has been found infected with novel coronavirus as of Tuesday in the district and one COVID-19 patient has died so far, while 42 people have recovered from the disease.

According to guidelines of Directorate General of Health Services of Bangladesh, an area could be identified as ‘red zone’ if 10 or more COVID-19 patients are found in every 100,000 people of any area except Dhaka metropolitan area within 14 consecutive days. The guidelines also said an area could be identified as ‘yellow zone’ if three to nine COVID-19 patients are found in every 100,000 people of any area except the Dhaka metro within previous 14 days.

In case of Dhaka metro, an area could be identified as red zone if 60 or more in every 100,000 people are tested positive for the novel virus in 14 consecutive days while ‘yellow zones’ are where the patient number within that time will be three to 59, the guidelines say.

The country on Tuesday saw the highest-ever jump in coronavirus cases and deaths in a single day as the health authorities confirmed the detection of 3,862 new patients and record 53 deaths in the span of 24 hours.

With this, the death toll rose to 1,262 and the number of confirmed cases in the country reached 94,481.