At the entrance to Jawaharpur village on Wednesday. (Express photo by Jaipal Singh)

Ten more COVID-19 cases were reported from Jawaharpur village in Derabassi Sub-Division on Wednesday, taking the total number to 36 — the highest in the state. All the 10 new positive cases are said to be between 40s and 50s, and were contacts of previous positive cases.

Till Wednesday, five persons who were tested positive were discharged from hospitals.

According to the authorities, two men are aged 56, one is aged 61 and the fourth one is aged 53. The remaining are aged between 40s and 50s. The health authorities had collected 118 samples of close contacts of Jawaharpur residents who were tested positive. Out of these, reports of 84 were received by the district administration. Out of of the 84, 80 reports were negative. The report of Congress leader Deepinder Singh Dhillon was negative. One of the positive persons who is also the husband of the Jawaharpur village’s sarpanch was seen with Dhillon while distributing the ration last week.

Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan said that extensive checking and sampling is underway at Jawaharpur village and the surrounding areas. The entire village was sanitised on Wednesday.

“We collected samples of 607 persons as on Tuesday which is the highest number in Punjab. We collect 25 to 55 samples against one positive case,” the DC added.

The Civil Surgeon, Dr Manjeet Singh, told The Indian Express that all the 10 new cases were close contacts of the persons who were previously tested positive. He added that one of the affected persons is a panchayat member of the village.

Meanwhile, a 1,000-bed isolation facility was set up at Chandigarh University at Ghruan.

When asked about the source of infection at the village, Dr Singh said that they would soon find the exact source of infection of the disease which would further help them to contain the spread.

“In this case, no one had a travel history but we shall soon get to know about the source of infection. So far we have discharged five persons who were tested positive,” Dr Singh said.

Till Wednesday, the district health department had collected 629 samples out of which 524 reports were negative, 30 were tested positive while the reports of 75 samples were pending.