Patiala/Jalandhar Punjab on Saturday reported 19 new coronavirus cases, taking the total in the state to 234. Fifteen fresh cases are from Patiala, three from Jalandhar and a Gurdaspur resident, who was residing in Ludhiana, also tested positive for the virus.
Patiala civil surgeon Dr Harish Malhotra said 15 positive cases include nine neighbours of a book trader, who tested positive on Thursday, while six others are close contacts of a Rajpura woman, who contracted the infection on Friday. With this, Patiala has so far reported 26 cases and is at the third spot behind Mohali and Jalandhar, which have 57 and 41 Covid-19 patients so far.
“We have immediately deployed our rapid response teams and surveillance units in affected areas to shift the patients to isolation wards of government medical college and Rajindra Hospital,” said Dr Malhotra, adding that all patients are asymptomatic and their reports were found to be positive only after their samples were taken as they were in contact with positive patients.
“We collected 16 samples from Rajpura and 15 from the market area in Patiala city,” Dr Malhotra said. The health department has started the process of tracing the contacts of new patients so that they can be screened and tested at the earliest. “We have contained the grain market area in Rajpura, while several localities in the interior of the city have been sealed. A total of 237 health teams are carrying out the screening process,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“We collected 16 samples from Rajpura and 15 from the market area in Patiala city,” Dr Malhotra said. The health department has started the process of tracing the contacts of new patients so that they can be screened and tested at the earliest. “We have contained the grain market area in Rajpura, while several localities in the interior of the city have been sealed. A total of 237 health teams are carrying out the screening process,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Patiala Deputy commissioner Kumar Amit said: “People should not panic and should stay inside their homes. The extensive contact tracing process and aggressive testing has led to the identification of persons with infection. In the past four days, we have taken 50 samples, of which 21 are positive, while 29 are negative,” the DC said. In Jalandhar, three relatives of a 70-year-old Covid-19 patient tested positive, said Jalandhar health department nodal officer Dr TPS Sandhu. With this, the district has reported 41 cases so far.
The new cases include a 34-year-old woman, 45-year-old man and 17-years-old boy of Basti Danishmanda area in Jalandhar. They are daughter, son-in-law and grandson of the 70-year-old Covid-19 patient who tested positive on Tuesday His two granddaughters aged eight and nine tested positive on Friday. Health officials said that a total of 833 samples have been collected in Jalandhar district so far of which 578 tested negative and results of 213 are still awaited. In a joint statement, Jalandhar deputy commissioner Varinder Sharma and commissioner of police Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said no case of community transmission of Covid-19 have been reported in the district.