In the highest single-day spike, Rajasthan reported 242 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, taking the tally to 5,202 while five deaths took the number of casualties to 131, the state health department said in its evening bulletin.
It was the fifth day in a row that the number of new cases crossed 200 in the state
Health officials said the 242 cases reported on Sunday include 60 from Jaipur, 43 from Jodhpur, 18 from Dungarpur and 14 from Pali.
There was an outbreak in the jails on Saturday when 119 cases were reported from two prisons in Jaipur district. On Sunday too, until 2pm, 14 cases had been reported from the two jails.
Health minister Raghu Sharma said the department had started random sampling in jails to prevent the spread of the infection.
“We are also trying to find out how the virus got into the jails,” he said. Sharma said a Covid care centre has been set up in Jaipur district jail as isolation facility for positive cases. “We are shifting only positive cases with co-morbidities to outside hospitals,” he said.
The Rajasthan high court had earlier taken suo motu cognizance of the Covid-19 outbreak in jails and ordered the state government to form committees in every district comprising secretary of district legal services authority, chief medical and health officer and president or secretary of district bar association to check if jails were following government’s guidelines on prevention of infection.
{{/usCountry}}The Rajasthan high court had earlier taken suo motu cognizance of the Covid-19 outbreak in jails and ordered the state government to form committees in every district comprising secretary of district legal services authority, chief medical and health officer and president or secretary of district bar association to check if jails were following government’s guidelines on prevention of infection.
{{/usCountry}}It said the committees will visit the jails and submit their report to Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority, which, in turn, will collate all district reports and present them in the high court.
Rajasthan has been reporting more than 200 new cases of Covid-19 every day since May 13. The number was 202 on May 13, 206 on May 14, and 213 each on May 15 and 16.
Rajasthan’s tally crossed the 5,000 mark on Sunday morning before ending day at 5,202, which includes 61 Iran evacuees and 49 of Border Security Force (BSF) personnel.
Out of the 5,202 cases, 3,055 have recovered and 2,655 of them even sent home. The number of active cases in the state is 2,016.
Five deaths were also reported in the state on Sunday – two from Jaipur and one each from Bharatpur, Bikaner and Kota.
Rajasthan has so far tested 231,946 samples, out of which 221,764 tested negative and 5,103 are under process.