Srinagar, Sep 2 (IANS): Alarmed by the increasing number of Covid positive patients, authorities in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar district have decided to bring all residents under extensive testing in areas where five or more positive cases have cropped up recently.

After re-classification of red zone districts in Kashmir, except for the Bandipora district, all other nine districts, including Srinagar have again been classified as red zone districts.

The Srinagar district has over 80 containment zones currently.

Of 717 deaths caused by the pandemic in J&K, 223 have occurred in Srinagar district.

Srinagar District Magistrate, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary has requested residents of the newly classified containment zones to ensure 100 per cent testing of households in the area.

The containment zone area norms have now been reduced from the existing 200 metres to 50-75 metres.

Authorities have decided to use the Rapid Antigen testing (RAT) technique in the containment zones to ascertain the magnitude of coronavirus infection in the areas.

Total number of people infected with Covid-19 has already crossed 38,000.

The silver lining is that out of these, over 29,000 patients have completely recovered so far.