Biker couple test positive, two cops quarantined

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: District administration and health wing are probing the circumstances under which a couple under home quarantine went for tests at medical college on a two-wheeler and returned home. Two traffic policemen, who intercepted them as part of routine check, were quarantined as the couple tested positive on Tuesday.
The epidemiological team found that the man (33) and woman (27) came from Delhi on June 7 in special train and entered home quarantine. She developed a cough on June 11 and the team at PHC advised medication if symptoms worsened. Her cough subsided on June 13.
They travelled on two-wheeler for routine swab collection on June 21 at MCH. On their way back they were stopped at Ulloor Junction by policemen. Officials said the couple had asked an ambulance service and the delay in getting one led to their travel.
As per the advisory given to ward-level monitoring teams, only ambulance must be used to transport symptomatic persons in home quarantine. However with the increase in HQ and IQ cases, the ambulance service is becoming hard to get. This incident has forced the administration to look at alternatives like engaging private ambulances for transportation of symptomatic persons under quarantine to testing centres. But, private ambulances aren’t keen on the proposal. They also checked with private taxis but the proposal did not work out. The proposal was considered as the driver cabins have been partitioned now to ferry returnees from airports to home or Covid care centres.
Local-level health workers say that persons under home quarantine often call them to arrange an ambulance to go for testing and it is hard to get one and arranging private vehicle seems to be the only viable option. It takes 90 minutes to fumigate an ambulance which is used for transporting symptomatic persons for testing and on a normal day one ambulance can ferry less than 10 persons. There was another recent instance where a bystander at MCH testing positive. The father and son, who arrived from Mumbai, were headed to Tirunelveli, when the former collapsed on train and was taken to MCH. He tested negative, his son tested positive.