1st Covid positive: 41 co-passengers, five contact persons identified

Tribune News Service

Srinagar March 21

The authorities have identified all 41 co-passengers of the Covid positive patient and put 11 of them in hospital quarantine in Shopian district.

The 11 co-passengers had travelled with the 67-year-old woman, who tested positive on Wednesday. “We have identified all 41 co-passengers and five contact persons of the positive patient. The 11 co-passengers, who travelled with her to Umrah, are asymptomatic and hospital quarantined in the Public Health Centre (PHC) Tukru, Shopian,” said nodal officer, Covid, Dr Manzoor Qadri.

From there she travelled in a connected Air India flight through Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh and finally reached Srinagar airport on March 16.

Official sources said in New Delhi she was facilitated by a J&K policeman, whose samples have also been taken for test. The policeman had carried her two grandchildren in his lap to the Chandigarh-Srinagar bound flight, they said.

The J&K government has banned policemen and employees of the Hospitality and Protocol Department in New Delhi to accompany VIPs to the Indira Gandhi International airport, they said. Officials said the woman was accompanied by her husband and 40 other Kashmiri persons.

Qadri said she was found asymptomatic at Srinagar airport. “She filled the self-declaration form for revealing travel history and was screened with thermal scanner for fever,” he said.

Her symptoms were diagnosed on March 16 at SMHS hospital, Srinagar, from where she went to SKIMS, Soura.

Officials said 13 family members of the woman have been quarantined. A senior superintendent of police rank officer, who is son-in-law of the woman, has been home quarantined.