10 new cases, curbs eased

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 22

Ten Covid cases were reported in the state in the past 24 hours even as the Department of Revenue and Disaster Management on Wednesday allowed more activities and businesses to operate during the lockdown.

Four cases each were reported from Sonepat and Gurugram and one each from Ambala and Rohtak. With this, Haryana’s Covid tally touched 255. Eleven persons were cured and released from hospital in the past 24 hours. So far, 144 persons have been cured and the state’s recovery rate is 56.5 per cent. The total number of tests conducted crossed 15,000 in the state. So far, 15,561 samples have been tested, with 13,397 returning and 1,914 results awaited.

In a major spike for Sonepat, four more persons, including a staff nurse at a government hospital in Delhi, tested positive for Covid taking the district’s tally to 13. Three residents of Gur Mandi area — a 60-year-old woman, her 29-year-old son his 30-year-old friend — tested positive. One of the men was a tailor and the other a carpenter, but they did not go to work after the lockdown. However, they came in contact with a neighbour, who had attended a marriage in Delhi recently. A 35-year-old staff nurse of Sonepat’s Saraswati Vihar colony posted in Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital in Jahangirpuri of Delhi tested positive too. She had recently worked in the isolation ward.

In Gurugram, two paramedics working at Medanta Hospital and a woman tested positive. The woman is an employee of IDBI Bank in Bhiwadi (Rajasthan) and had come in contact with her branch manager, who had earlier tested positive earlier. A city resident who had come in contact with an infected person was the district’s fourth case.

In Rohtak, a man from Kakrana village in Rohtak district undergoing treatment for cancer at a Delhi hospital tested Covid-positive in the National Capital. The 58-year-old was then referred to PGIMS-Rohtak. His wife, brother and a driver who took them to the Delhi hospital and lab have also been admitted to the isolation ward of PGIMS and their samples sent for testing.

Meanwhile, in directions issued to all administrative secretaries, divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners, for agriculture and horticulture, facilities for export or import such as pack houses, inspection and treatment facilities for seeds and horticulture produce; farm-related research establishments and inter and intra state movement of planting materials and honey bee colonies and honey and beehive products has been allowed. Among commercial establishments, operation of shops selling educational books and electric fans has been allowed.