Thirty-six staff members of Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, taking the hospital total to 57.
On Saturday, 26 more health care staff from Wockhardt Hospital tested positive, taking its total to 80. This is the biggest cluster of affected health workers in Mumbai.
A blood bank technician from Sion Hospital had also tested positive on Saturday, taking that hospital’s total to 19. At Jaslok Hospital, the earlier tally stood at 21 staff members.
On Sunday, Jaslok Hospital, in a statement said, “Ever since the first case was tested positive, Jaslok quarantined the connected staff and quarantined them at one of our hostel, Peregrine near VT. BMC had announced this hostel as a containment zone. All of them were tested subsequently and were negative. On precautionary ground, Jaslok suspended its operations after the first case. The positive cases have come from quarantined staff in the hostel who were tested again before they would resume for work. After doing their swab testing for second time, some of the staff members have been tested positive and they are asymptomatic. We are taking all precautions to ensure safety of our staff and patients. We have done testing for over 1,600 of our staff, nurses and doctors.” The city’s public and private health infrastructure is under tremendous strain due to large number of staff members testing COVID-19 positive.