Panic swept through the Dehradun-bound Jan Shatabdi Express after a passenger traveling in one of the coaches had tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, railway officials said Monday.
The 48-year-old man who hails from Shyampur in Rishikesh is an employee in a battery making firm in Noida. He had boarded the train on Sunday afternoon from Ghaziabad. Midway through the journey, the person, whose sample was taken in Noida, got a message on his phone that he had tested positive for Covid-19.
Though the person instantly informed Covid-19 control room through a toll-free number, co-passengers panicked and kept their distance from him.
The incident sparked outrage over the fact that the person was allowed to travel before his results of his test was declared.
“It is being communicated to the respective authorities of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, as to how the person was allowed to board the train when he ought to have been in quarantine,” Station house officer Government Railway Police (GRP) Haridwar Anuj Singh said.
He also said that according to the person his sample was collected at the company’s factory itself so there is also the question why he was allowed by company management and local authorities to travel interstate when he should have been quarantined till the sample report came.
Chief medical officer Dr Saroj Naithani said that the particular passenger has been shifted to Covid-19 isolation center at Mela hospital while other co-passengers in the same coach have been quarantined in a government facility after the train arrived in the evening.
{{/usCountry}}Chief medical officer Dr Saroj Naithani said that the particular passenger has been shifted to Covid-19 isolation center at Mela hospital while other co-passengers in the same coach have been quarantined in a government facility after the train arrived in the evening.
{{/usCountry}}“GRP personnel informed the health department about the passenger being Covid-19 positive and immediately a team was sent to the railway station. All the 22 other passengers in the coach hailing from Haryana and Rajasthan have been quarantined at Maheshwari Sewa Sadan in Haridwar,” said Haridwar chief medical officer Dr Saroj Naithani.
Haridwar is the penultimate stoppage of the train.