Bihar’s Covid-19 graph climbs higher with return of migrant workers

Bihar’s single day spike in infections on Saturday was the highest in comparison to the total cases reported between March and May, last year. Bihar reported its first two Covid-19 cases on March 22 last year and the cases gradually began to rise by May.

The return of migrant workers continued to push Bihar’s Covid-19 graph up as 56 of the 2,407 passengers who arrived from Maharashtra by four special trains tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday.

Migrants along with their belongings stand in a queue for Covid-19 testing amid the surge in cases at Patna Junction railway station on Sunday. (ANI PHOTO.)

State capital Patna reported the highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases, accounting for 1,431 of the total 3,469 new infections in Bihar on Saturday. Three of the six Covid-19 deaths in the state on Saturday were from Patna. The total number of active cases has gone up to 11,998 in the state.

So far, 97 passengers have tested positive out of the 3,668 who have arrived here by special trains from Maharashtra, beginning April 8, said health officials. Maharashtra has been reporting around 50% of India’s total Covid-19 cases, forcing the government to put curbs. This has led to another round of exodus of migrant workers to Bihar.

All train passengers testing positive for the virus have been isolated at the Hotel Patliputra Ashok in Patna.

Seventeen of the passengers testing positive on Saturday, had reached the Danapur railway station from Pune by the Pune-Danapur Express. Another 24 passengers tested positive out of the 803 passengers who arrived at the Danapur railway station by the Lokmanya Tilak Terminal to Patliputra train. Nine other passengers tested positive out of the total 576 who came to Patna junction by the Kurla-Patna train. Six other passengers tested positive out of the 326 on board the Lokmanya Tilak Terminal to Patliputra train after it arrived at the Patliputra railway station.

Prior to that, 24 had tested positive out of the 606 passengers who arrived by the Kurla-Patna Express on April 9. Seventeen other passengers had tested positive for the virus out of the total 655 who arrived by the first of these special trains on April 8.

Bihar’s single day spike in infections on Saturday was the highest in comparison to the total cases reported between March and May, last year. Bihar reported its first two Covid-19 cases on March 22 last year and the cases gradually began to rise by May.

Bihar health minister Mangal Pandey, while talking to a TV channel on Sunday, said the spike in cases this year was because of higher testing in the state. He said the state was testing around 90,000 samples a day that was 30 times more than the 3,000 to 4,000 samples being tested in the initial three months of the pandemic in the state.