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Goa’s Covid-19 tally doubles to 14 overnight, 7 entering the state found positive
State health minister Vishwajit Rane said that a preliminary rapid TruNat test conducted on the seven people on Wednesday proved Covid-19 positive and so did the confirmatory tests, whose results came later at night.
Goa’s coronavirus disease (Covid-19) tally doubled on Wednesday to 14, as seven new positive cases were reported and all among those who entered the state by road after the lockdown restrictions were partially eased.
The seven patients are undergoing treatment at the dedicated Covid-19 facility in South Goa from Thursday morning.
State health minister Vishwajit Rane said that a preliminary rapid TruNat test conducted on the seven people on Wednesday proved Covid-19 positive and so did the confirmatory tests, whose results came later at night.
Of the seven new Covid-19 positive cases, five belong to one family, who returned to Goa from Maharashtra’s Solapur district, where they had gone prior to the nationwide lockdown restrictions, which were enforced from March 25 to contain the spread of Covid-19 outbreak, were announced.
The five include a husband, wife, their two children -- a son and a daughter -- and a granddaughter, who is the youngest Covid-19 patient in the state to date.
The other two Covid-19 positive cases are both truck drivers -- one was returning from Gujarat and another from Mumbai.
Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant told media persons that contact tracing of all the seven new Covid-19 positive cases was on.
“The five members of a Goan family was directly taken to a quarantine facility on Wednesday. There’s no fear of community transmission. Those who came in contact with the drivers will undergo tests,” the CM said.
“All those who tested Covid-19 positive came from outside Goa,” he added.
Prior to Wednesday, Goa reported its last Covid-19 positive case on April 3, and the state was declared a Green Zone on April 17 after the patient recovered. The state is yet to report a Covid-19 related death.
Besides those stranded people from Goa who are returning to the state by their own vehicles, the state administration is ensuring repatriating and ferrying the rest, who don’t have many any mode of conveyance.
On Wednesday, 60 students from Karnataka’s Ghatprabha were brought back to Goa by state-run buses and another 26 are on their way back home from Kochi and Mangaluru. On Thursday, 24 more will leave Bengaluru for Goa.
“In the last couple of days, 15 buses have brought back to Goa 241 people stranded from Kasargod in Kerala; Mangaluru, Bengaluru, Belgaum, Hubli, Dharwad, Khanapur, Jamboti, and Gadag in Karnataka; Navi Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra; Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Surat in Gujarat and Dadra & Nagar Haveli,” the state government said in a release.
Altogether, 4,476 people stranded in Goa from Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh have left for their respective states by four Shramik Special trains over the last few days, it added.
