Although the Greater Chennai Corporation has been rolling out extensive containment strategies to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the containment zones and the areas that have been emerging as clusters, the recent data has revealed that about 30% of the city's positive cases have been getting reported outside the ambits of the current containment zones.

The revelation has signaled that the corporation must ramp up its containment strategies beyond the zones to mitigate the spread in the city. According to the reports, the sequel of rising cases outside the containment zones has let the corporation map more areas under the ambit of the containment zones and the city had seen about 70 additional zones in less than a week. 

The city has 764 containment zones currently in its territory and by this time last week, the city had 690 zones and till last Saturday, the city had 701 zones and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, which is zone six, has the highest number of zones in the entire city -119 as of Saturday. The official data had shown that of the 482 cases reported in Chennai on Sunday, 133 cases were recorded outside the containment zones. 

On Saturday, the city had added 332 fresh cases of which 94 people were living outside the containment zones. The officials attribute the rising cases outside the containment zones to the movements of the frontline workers and essential service providers to and fro of the containment zones. Most of the cases outside the zones are because of the frontline workers including the medical workers and police officials who would be working outside the current containment zones. 

According to the data, a single case has a higher possibility of emerging the cluster and the human to human transmitting virus could have been spread in the areas outside the containment zones through the contacts of the family members and the frontline workers in the containment zones and the sharpest increase has been letting the corporation to seal off more areas and bring it under the umbrella of the containment zones. 

According to the Times of India, Kodambakkam, which is zone ten, had recorded the most number of cases outside the containment zone on both days. As of Saturday, Kodambakkam alone had reported 919 positive cases for virus making it one of the active zones of the city. The reports stated that Kodambakkam, Anna Nagar (zone eight), and Valasarawakkam ( zone 11) had more cases that were linked to the Koyambedu cluster as of Saturday.

As of Saturday, Royapuram (Zone five) had reported the most number of cases in the city. It has 1,047 cases followed by Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, which has 737 positive cases. On Monday, Chennai has reported 364 cases through which the state crossed 7000 cases by reporting 7,117 cases so far amid the restrictions and lockdown. 

To view the current containment zones and streets in Chennai on Google map, please visit: https://goo.gl/maps/B9YLftCrC3HBHtCk6