Punjab reports 12 new coronavirus cases; state tally stands at 170

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 12

Punjab recorded 12 new coronavirus cases, taking the state’s tally of infections to 170 with 12 recorded deaths.

Jalandhar, Mohali, Faridkot and Kapurthala recorded new coronavirus cases, a health bulletin from the state government showed on Sunday evening.

Jalandhar recorded seven new coronavirus cases on Sunday, taking the district’s tally to 22. The district now has the most number of cases after Mohali.

Five of the seven new cases are contacts of already diagnosed positive cases. One has been linked to last month’s Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin.

A woman from Jalandhar’s Kotla Keran village who died recently was diagnosed with coronavirus on Sunday. She has yet to be counted in the state’s official tally, but when it does, her death would be the thirteeenth from the virus in the state and the second in Jalandhar.

Meanwhile, after reports that the woman who sources say was aged between 58-60 years showed she had COVID-19, the district’s health team made their way to the area. Sources said that after the woman died, 70-80 people had attended the woman’s final rites.

Mohali and Kapurthala also reported new coronavirus cases.

Mohali reported three more cornavirus cases, all of them from Dera Bassi’s Jawaharpur village, a coronavirus hotspot.

All three cases were contacts of previously diagnosed cases, the state bulletin said. All three cases, including two women, were immediate family of the people already diagnosed with the infection, officials said.

They have all been isolated.

The development takes the infection tally in the village alone to 37 and Mohali district to 53.

In Kapurthala’s Phagwara, a student of Lovely Professional University who was staying at the institution’s hostel tested positive late on Saturday. The woman, believed to be originally from Mumbai’s suburbs, is believed to have travelled nowhere recently and had been staying at the hostel for several months now. The state bulletin shows this is a new case.

District health authorities have sealed the campus and are conduct thorough health checkups. They are also tracing the people the woman may have come in contact with.

Meanwhile, district health authorities in Nawanshahr said reports of three people who had previously been isolated at the district hospital after they tested positive have come back for the second consecutive time. Authorities have declared that they had been treated successfully and will be released soon.

The number of people cured in the district now stands at 13, officials said. Health authorities also said that the district had only five more people in its isolation centre.

Of the 4,281 samples sent for testing in Punjab, 3,590 have come back negative. Authorities are awaiting reports in 521 cases.