Police stand guard at Ajmeri Gate, the entrance to Jaipur’s Walled City area. (Express photo by Rohit Jain Paras) Police stand guard at Ajmeri Gate, the entrance to Jaipur’s Walled City area. (Express photo by Rohit Jain Paras)

WHILE ITS “Bhilwara model” is being replicated elsewhere in the country, the Rajasthan government is facing a major challenge in Jaipur, where the number of COVID-19 cases has more than doubled in the last few days — from 168 on April 9 to 370 on Monday.

Jaipur now accounts for about 42 per cent of the total 897 cases in the state. While 39 new cases were reported in the city on April 9, the number went up to 53 on April 10, and 80 on April 11. The last two days have shown a slight dip: 40 new cases on April 12, and 29 on April 13.

According to Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO), Jaipur, Narottam Sharma, of the total cases in the city, at least 285 have been reported from Ramganj, inside the Walled City, where the first case was reported on March 26, when a 45-year-old man who had returned from Oman on March 12, tested positive.

The administration is relying on containment measures including a massive drive for random sample collection after identifying clusters and strict curfew inside the Walled City, where two deaths were reported in the last five days.

State Health Minister Raghu Sharma said the dense population in Ramganj was a major challenge in implementing the “Bhilwara model”. He also pointed to lack of public participation in following the administration’s orders.

“The nature of the spread of population is different when it comes to Bhilwara and Ramganj. Ramganj is a densely-populated area and, in some places, 10-15 families reside in one building. Moreover, in Bhilwara, our strategy of ruthless containment was successful because of exemplary public participation, with all citizens following the orders to stay indoors. We have appealed to everyone in Ramganj to exercise social distancing but we need complete support of the public,” said the minister.

“Our strategy to tackle the outbreak in Ramganj is based on two points — contact tracing and cluster-wise sampling. We have divided the entire area into various clusters, based on the number of affected persons. Random samples are being collected from people living near all these clusters. It is good that more cases are coming out as we are conducting more tests. This will benefit us in the long run…” he said.

“We have divided the entire affected area into 30 clusters… We are also going door-to-door… So far, 4,047 samples have been collected since April 8, when the drive started. We are taking the help of the police, but people are still coming out of their houses,” said the CMHO.

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