The Punjab government on Wednesday issued instructions to cancel the leaves of all the key staff engaged in reporting and management of coronavirus.
Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said the staff involved in surveillance of coronavirus — reporting, tracing and management — would only be granted leave after getting sanction from the Directorate of Health Services so that screening of suspected passengers would not be affected.
Mr. Sidhu said so far a total of 22,236 passengers have been screened at the international airports in Amritsar and Mohali. He also said that 16,549 passengers have been screened at the Attari-Wagah border in Amritsar and 5,687 passengers at the Dera Baba Nanak check post in Gurdaspur district.
The Minister said of the 1,517 passengers, who had travelled to China or had transit stay at airports, 35 samples were collected for testing and all these samples have been reported negative by the National Institute of Virology.
A total of 1,109 passengers have crossed the observation period of 14 days so far and the remaining passengers have been kept in home isolation and under observation of the health department.