Goa crosses century mark as Mangor Hill Covid-19 cases swell

PANAJI: Goa witnessed another big jump in its Covid-19 count on Thursday, crossing the 100-mark, as 40 new cases were reported—32 of them from Mangor Hill in port town of Vasco, a containment zone.

In less than 48 hours, Goa has reported 82 fresh cases of Covid-19, taking the active cases count to 109.
Among the 32 persons testing positive from Mangor Hill is a health worker from Margao, who had visited the area for field work on Saturday and possibly picked up the infection.
Top government sources said another 8-9 health workers have come positive in the screening and their confirmatory tests are awaited.
Other eight persons who have been reported positive have travelled from Maharashtra.
Chief minister Pramod Sawant, who on Thursday visited Mangor Hill, said a decision on bringing more areas in Vasco under containment zone would be taken on Friday.
“We have taken a review and we feel that the situation is under control and that the cases will come down. However, let’s see how many more positive cases are detected on Friday based on which we will take a decision,” the chief minister said.
Of total 166 cases reported since March, 57 patients have been cured.
Health secretary Nila Mohanan said they had collected 202 swabs of people of Mangor Hill, of which 42 reported positive on Wednesday, and of the 352 swabs collected on Thursday, 32 have shown positive result for Covid-19, while results of 400 swabs collected would be known on Friday.
She said contact tracing work at Mangor Hill will continue till health department is satisfied. She said the health department was yet to conclusively establish the source of infection among the fisherman’s family—from where the first case of the area originated.
She said they suspected that the fisherman had visited a godown, where he came in contacts with drivers from Andhra Pradesh.
Mohanan said they had got in touch with the Andhra Pradesh authorities to establish the possible links with truck drivers who may have come to Goa.
Meanwhile, due to heavy rush at the North Goa district hospital, Virnoda college in Pernem has been taken over by the district administration set up swab collection centre.
“We want to reduce the crowd at district hospital. There is a huge inflow of people crossing over from Patradevi and coming to the district hospital to give their swabs. We wanted to keep the rush away from the district hospital so that it can continue to provide normal hospital services,” she said.
Mohanan said the health department is planning to start swab collection at Virnoda college from Saturday. “It will only serve as a collection centre,” she said.
Further tightening the monitoring of travellers, she said, officials of directorate of panchayat and municipal administration will be posted at swab collection centre and they will intimate respective ward members about the travellers in their wards.
“Till such time their test results are not known, ward members will be asked to keep a watch on travellers in their area and ensure that they maintain self- isolation,” she said.