Collector, Kamptee officials come in contact with +ve man, none tested

Nagpur: District collector Ravindra Thakare, Kamptee tehsildar Arvind Hinge and a large number of officials have come in contact with a top municipal council office-bearer who tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday.
By Thursday evening, none of them was quarantined or tested unlike it has been happening in case of citizens. During the day, Thakare continued to hold several meetings. He didn’t respond to TOI’s calls and message.
Last week, Thakare had told TOI that he and 40 of his staff had already got themselves tested after a top official tested positive. The staffers too were asked to work from home. Their result is still not known.
A day before giving his swab for testing, the office-bearer was present in a Covid meeting headed by the collector in the tehsil office on Monday. Among the various issues now plaguing the cantonment town with a sudden spike in cases, the district officials had discussed several private hospitals hiding suspected patients and alleged not reporting Covid deaths.
On Thursday when TOI visited the tehsil office, it was business as usual and on-duty staff said no one was asked to isolate themselves.
Instead, the local administration has set up an exclusive Covid testing camp in the area of the office-bearer. “14 people voluntarily came to the camp and gave their swab samples. We are already conducting door-to-door survey. The camp in this area will go on for some more days,” Hinge said.
Among the 13 tehsils in the district, Kamptee has reported the maximum cases of 302 and seven deaths. As per officials, five deaths have been reported from Imli Bagh, where the office-bearer lives. Most of the cases from the town are symptomatic and many are being reported to government hospitals at a critical stage.
On July 22, TOI had reported about the tehsil office sealing a private hospital and also about the meeting chaired by Thakare at the tehsil office.
Following the meeting, the collector was flanked by the office-bearer and other officials while speaking to local media channels. Soon after the news of the office-bearer testing positive broke, the video went viral about showing him standing close to the collector during the media interaction.
Hinge said none of the officials has been tested or quarantined as yet. “Physical distancing was maintained while holding the meeting,” he said.
The condition of the office-bearer is said to be stable but he has co-morbidities like diabetes and BP. “He has been put on oxygen,” Hinge said.