Admn gears up for village-level quarantine of returnees

Shariq Majeed | TNN | May 1, 2020, 07:24 IST

Ludhiana: As the number of Covid-19 cases witnessed a spike mainly after 45 pilgrims who had returned Nanded Sahib tested positive, the district administration is set to start institutional quarantine even for those who test negative especially persons coming from outside.
As many as 210 pilgrims (56 on Monday and 154 on Wednesday) from Nanded Sahib and 26 students had returned from Kota in the past two days. Of the students, four have tested positive. All the returnees are under institutional quarantine in Ludhiana.
Deputy commissioner Pradeep Kumar Aggarwal said in accordance with the instructions, negative persons are also being institutional quarantined which may be even at village level.
Officials said in view of spike in number of cases, it had become important to quarantine each person coming from outside especially in institutional quarantine.
At present, a majority of the persons who had come from outside the state recently are being kept in quarantine centres at the meritorious school in Ludhiana.
A senior official said among those who returned from Kota and Nanded Sahib, a majority are from Ludhiana, but some are also from Samrala, Jagraon and Raikot areas.
Officials claimed that they have adequate facilities for those coming from outside as there are many quarantine centres across the district. He added that majority of those who have tested positive are asymptomatic.
Meanwhile, villagers are also keeping a close watch on people coming from outside the state and they inform the civil administration authorities without any delay.
Manjeet Singh, sarpanch of Balliayan village near Samrala, said four combine drivers had come to their village from Madhya Pradesh and he informed the health department about them. He said later, a team of health department officials arrived in an ambulance and took them away to take their samples at Ludhiana civil hospital.
“We are keeping a watch on people coming from outside. We do inform the department concerned as we don’t want the disease to spread in our area,” said a villager.
Officials in the civil administration at Samrala said a village where five cases have been reported and part of another village, wherein a woman pilgrim tested positive, in Samrala area has been sealed. They added that after initial “leniency” on part of administration and police, the police acted strictly in the whole Samrala area and didn’t allow any needless movement of people on the streets in the town and in villages.