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Police station cook tests positive, takes Panchkula Covid tally to 20
The cook who is on leave is currently in her native village in Kurukshetra, wherein health department team of the city has been informed
With a 27-year-old female mess assistant at the Sector 5 police station testing positive on Saturday, Panchkula district’s Covid tally touched 20. Of these, 17 patients have already been cured and discharged from hospital.
Panchkula civil surgeon Dr Jasjeet Kaur said the woman is a native of Harigarh village, Pehowa in Kurukshetra, and was staying at the women’s police station in Sector 5. She said that 83 blood samples of police personnel and other employees working at police posts, police stations and check posts in Panchkula were taken for testing on May 5, wherein only the woman cook tested positive.
District Covid-19 nodal officer, Dr Rajiv Narwal, said the cook had taken leave and gone to her native village in Kurukshetra on May 7. “We have informed the health department team in Kurukshetra for further action as the woman is currently at her native village where she is admitted. We have isolated her immediate contacts, of which five women constables whom she was sharing the room with during her stay here, are being tested,” he said.
As per officials, the woman was usually engaged in cooking and carrying water to the police station and her source of infection has not been ascertained as yet. Meanwhile, one of her contacts in Panchkula, the mess supervisor, has tested negative. Officials said the woman’s family members– husband, five-year-old daughter, her in-laws–in Kurukshetra have also been isolated there.
For 18 days, Panchkula district registered no Covid case, following which on Friday, a 44-year-old milk vendor-cum-confectioner from Rajiv Colony near Sector 16/17 tested positive. The district administration on Saturday declared some of the area in colony as containment zone and the remaining as buffer zone.
