In a report released by the Government, the number of COVID-19 hotspots, or “red zones”, across India have reduced from from 170 on April 15 to 130 on April 30, seen as a major achievement due to the lockdown.

However, a matter of concern is that the number of “green zones”, or districts which report no new cases in the past 21 days, have decreased from 356 to 319.

Also, “orange zones”, where no new Coronavirus case is reported in the past 14 days, have increased from 207 to 284.

This data is as per a letter from the Union Health Ministry to the chief secretaries of all states and union territories, following a video conference on Thursday.

The health ministry has finalised the list of containment zones and divided the states and districts into different categories according to the COVID-19 situation in these areas. The list will help the Centre devise a lockdown exit plan post May 3.

As per the list, 130 districts fall under the Red Zones, 284 in the Orange Zones and 319 in Green Zones.

After consulting the state governments and the chief secretaries of the states, the health ministry has decided to put all metro cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, in the Red Zone. The Red Zone cities also include Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

All districts of Delhi have been included in the Red Zone category. Maharashtra, the most affected state, has the highest number of Red Zones – 14 districts – among all states.

In Tamil Nadu, 12 districts fall under the Red Zones, 19 in Uttar Pradesh, 10 in West Bengal while nine each in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan has eight Red Zones.

Assam has 30 Green Zone districts, the highest.

In the letter, Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said that since recovery rates have gone up, districts are now being designated across various zones duly broad-basing the criteria.

“This classification is multi-factorial and takes into consideration incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback to classify the districts.” it said.

All states have been requested to delineate the containment zones and buffer zones in the identified red and orange zone districts and notify the same.

A district will be considered under “green zone”, if there are no confirmed COVID-19 cases so far or there is no reported case since last 21 days in the district, the letter said.

“For districts having one or more municipal corporations, corporations and other areas of districts may be treated as separate units. If one or more of these have reported no cases for last 21 days, they can be considered one level lower in zonal classification, if the district is in the Red/Orange Zone,” the letter stated.

In buffer zones, extensive surveillance for cases through monitoring of ILI/SARI cases in health facilities has to be taken up, the government told the states.

“It is critical to ensure necessary action for containment (in order) to break chain of transmission of virus in both red and orange zone districts reporting confirmed cases,” the letter read.

On April 15, the Centre had identified 170 hotspot districts, which included all six metros and most large cities. The Centre had also identified 207 districts as potential hotspots and tasked the states to ensure containment of outbreak in these regions.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Union Health Ministry in its daily briefing on Coronavirus said that India’s recovery rate presently stands at 24.19 per cent, a major improvement from 14 days ago, when it was only 13.06 per cent.

The doubling rate of Coronavirus infections has also increased to 11 days from 3.4 days before lockdown, the government said.

Meanwhile, new guidelines to fight COVID-19 which will give considerable relaxations to many districts will come into effect from May 4 when the nationwide lockdown is set to expire, the Union Home Ministry said on Wednesday.

India, today morning, recorded the biggest single-day spike 1,993 new Coronavirus cases, taking the total number of infections to 35,043 including 1,147 deaths.