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Covid-19: Bengal man who returned from Nizamuddin tests positive
Coronavirus in Bengal: More than 640 people contracted Covid-19 in different places following the Tablighi Jamaat conference.
A Kolkata Port Trust worker who was among those who returned from the Tablighi Jamaat conference in Delhi has tested positive for coronavirus while his fellow visitors have been tracked down in Bengal in the last 48 hours even as the Mamata Banerjee government has been silent since April 1 about the people who returned.
More than 640 people contracted Covid-19 in different places following the Tablighi Jamaat conference.
While the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) said it found a patient, HT could trace at least 31 other returnees from Murshidabad, Malda, Alipurduar and Birbhum districts.
Coronavirus outbreak: Full coverage
The man found by KoPT is Bengal’s first officially confirmed case of Covid-19 among people who attended the conference at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz. With this, the number of Covid-19 cases in Bengal touched 58 on Saturday.
Till Saturday morning three people have died of Covid-19 in Bengal taking the casualties to seven. Four others who died after testing positive might have died of co-morbidity, the government said.
On April 1, Banerjee said her government had received information about 71 people who went to the Tablighi Jamaat conference and 54 of them, and their families, had been tracked down in Bengal. Till Saturday afternoon her government did not make any more statement on the issue.
KoPT said in a statement on Saturday that on April 2 an employee of one of its contractors tested positive for Covid-19 at Haldia port. It said the man returned from Nizamuddin on March 24.
“Due to the lockdown no work was done at the berth which they (the contractor) operate. However, he (the patient) might have visited the docks,” the statement said.
“After the Nizamuddin episode came to light he was immediately tested by the municipality. Due to this case, contract labourers have not come to the port,” the statement said. It added that the regular port staff were working and officers who might have had any kind of contact with the patient had been quarantined.
KoPT said a sanitisation drive was on and masks, gloves and sanitizers have been given to all employees.
In Malda district, superintendent of police Alok Rajoria said, “Eleven people from Malda went to Delhi but none returned to the district. Ten of them are kept in quarantine in Maharashtra while one is in Jharkhand.”
In Birbhum district, officials kept silent but residents of Sonatorpara in Siuri town said a youth who lives near a local Madrasa was taken away by health department officials on April 1, days after he returned home. “The family initially claimed that he did not go to Delhi and the man even ran his shop. We saw health department officials coming in two vehicles and taking him away for quarantine,” said Chandan Mukherjee who lives in the neighbourhood.
In Murshidabad district, chief medical officer of health Prasanta Biswas said, “One man has been tracked down at Banipur village. He was picked up from home on Friday night and sent to institutional quarantine at Raghunathganj. Nine of his family members have been asked to stay in home isolation for 14 days.”
“All of them are asymptomatic. Right now we are not sending their samples for tests,” said Biswas.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior officer of district health department said, “The man is 48-years-old. He attended the conference on March 17. Before the lockdown he went to Assam where he has a small business. He returned home four days ago and was living a normal life. He did not bother to share his travel history with us.”
At Alipurduar district in north Bengal, two residents of Falakata who returned from Nizamuddin have tested negative, said Dr Puran Sharma, chief medical officer of health.
Sharma said 16 others, who are from south Bengal districts and put in quarantine in Alipurduar, also tested negative but he did not want to name the districts these people belong to. “All of them are still in quarantine,” he said.
