Coronavirus: Preliminary test of Gurugram woman turns out positive

Tribune News Service
Gurugram/Chandigarh, March 20

A preliminary test of a 60-year-old woman from Gurugram shows she has coronavirus, district health officials said on Friday.    

A test by PGIMS Rohtak showed she was positive. The sample has been sent to Pune’s National Institute of Virology for confirmation. 

She and her husband had returned from the UK on Tuesday. They were home-quarantined on their return, and district health officials were monitoring them, health officials said, adding that they were tested when they showed symptoms of COVID-19—the name given to this particular strain of coronavirus.  

However, the woman’s husband tested negative.

If confirmed, she would become the eighteenth case in Haryana. Authorities are believed to take swabs from 12 people she had been in touch with after she tested positive in preliminary tests.  

India’s rising number of coronavirus cases has caused alarm across the country. India’s cases now stand at 223, with four deaths. 

Globally, the deadly virus has claimed over 10,000 lives of over 2,00,000 infections. 

Haryana's confirmed cases—currently at 17—includes 14 foreign nationals. 

Meanwhile, a tip from a resident of another housing complex, Jublee Apartments in Sector 15, on how as yet unidentified three people who recently returned from Dubai did not follow the mandated procedure of self-quarantine lead to health authorities getting in touch with the Residents Welfare Association to help identify them

In a related development, the Haryana Government on Friday imposed Section 144 in the state as a precautionary measure against coronavirus and has announced it would start using stamps to mark people in home quarantine.

So as to prevent and contain the spread of novel COVID-19 in Haryana, all district magistrates and police commissioners in the state are advised to invoke section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, in their respective districts restricting the assembly of five or more than five people in public places, a press note said.

Adequate consideration may however be provided to movement of people in public transport (in trains, buses etc) or in any other mode of transport especially in the eventuality of medical emergencies, it said.

Haryana has so far recorded 17 cases—three Indians and 14 foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, Haryana Roadways announced it was staying off the roads on March 22 from 7 am to 9 pm after Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to people to follow what he called a “Janata Curfew”.

The Director of Haryana State Transport has written to general managers of various depots of the Haryana Roadways saying masks should be provided to drivers, conductors and workshop workers to safeguard them from coronavirus.

Driving schools being run by the State Transport Department have been shut until further orders. Instructions have been issued to ban entry of visitors to the officers. In special circumstances, only one person can be allowed to visit an officer at a time.

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