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Two more test positive; count rises to 21 in Pune district
While one of the two latest cases had a history of foreign travel, the other got infected from his brother who had travelled outside India
PUNE: Two more Covid-19 patients were detected in the city taking the final count of Sars-Cov-2 infections in Pune district to 21 as of Friday.
Of these 21, 12 were from Pimpri-Chinchwad and nine from Pune. While one of the two latest cases had a history of foreign travel, the other got infected from his brother who had travelled outside India.
Although state health minister Rajesh Tope said that five people had tested negative in their second round of test and were ready for discharge, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health officials denied any such move stating that no patient can be discharged without completing the incubation period of 14 days since the first test results came.
The latest Covid-19 cases include that of a 20-year-old man who had returned from Scotland and had been admitted to the Naidu Infectious Diseases Hospital. In the second case, the brother of a person infected by Sars-Cov-2 who had travelled to Singapore and Philippines tested positive for the virus. The second patient is a 24 year old male. This is the 6th case of local transmission in the city.
While the Dubai-returned couple who were among the first to test positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus were yet to be tested for the second time, three members of the same family have been admitted to the Naidu Infectious Diseases Hospital. The husband-wife duo and their daughter were the first cases to be detected in the city.
One of them said in an interview that they were eager to have their second tests taken at the earliest.
Dr Sudhir Patsute, superintendent of Naidu Hospital said, “The incubation period of the virus is 14 days and so we will take their swab samples for the second testing only after the incubation period to ensure that the virus has left their body completely.”
At a press conference on Friday, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar said, “The state is taking all necessary steps to contain the virus. With regards to the families below poverty line, the government would provide them with three months ration and if possible fresh vegetables too to sustain this situation.”
He said that while most IT companies had agreed to cooperate with the administration and ask their employees to work from home, only those employees were being called to office whose presence was necessary.
Pawar said all orders till March 31 for shutting down of shops and offices have now been extended ‘till further orders’.
Pawar also echoed the decision of chief minister Uddhav Thackeray that public transport services had not been suspended so as to enable the commuting of the health, sanitation, water supply and other such essential services staff. However, if the public continued to overcrowd these services some hard decisions would have to be taken, he said.
More doctors, nursing staff and home guards were being recruited to give a resting period to the current staff which had been working continuously without any break, he said.
Pawar urged manufacturing companies where work-from-home protocol could be implemented to bear with the economic loss rather than risk human loss. He said the emotional issue of shutting down of religion places should not be raised in the given situation.
