Eight of Baldev Singh’s contacts now negative

IP Singh | TNN | Apr 6, 2020, 11:16 IST

NAWANSHAHR: Seven Covid-19 positive patients – all contacts of late Baldev Singh of Pathlawa village, who was the first Covid-19 casualty in Punjab – tested negative on Sunday, including 78-year-old Sant Gurbachan Singh. Four grandchildren of Baldev Singh tested positive on Sunday while his son has been declared cured after his second sample also tested negative.
The negative reports came as a big relief for the family as well as for the village. “The mood was gloomy after Baldev Singh’s death. There was great anxiety about the health of those who had tested positive,” said village resident Harpreet Singh. It also came as a huge relief for the district administration. The village was sealed on March 18 just after health department got suspicious that Baldev Singh could have corona infection even as he was rushed to Civil Hospital Banga with typical symptoms of heart attack.
Sant Gurbachan Singh of Pathlawa village and Daljinder Singh, 60, of Jhikka village were late Baldev Singh’s cotravellers to Germany and Italy and former was the eldest in the 27 contacts of Covid-19 victim who tested positive. Another contact, Harbhajan Singh, in his 60s, from Moranwali village had died at Government Medical College in Amritsar. He was also diabetic. Another elder patient is Sarpanch Harpal Singh’s 75 year old mother. “She is also doing fine. We only had mild symptoms like some cough. The reports today has come as a huge relief for all of us,” said Harpal Singh, while speaking to TOI on phone from the isolation ward civil hospital Nawanshahr.