To avoid being tested, people returning to Surat had started to travel on internal roads of the Olpad route. (Representational)To keep the rise of coronavirus cases in Surat in check, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) has deployed teams of health officials at three entry and exit points of the city to screen citizens travelling to and from Surat. Teams of the civic body have also been deployed at another two entry and exit points on Olpad and Navsari routes.
Till date, the SMC has registered a total of 14,436 positive cases of coronavirus in Surat. Of these, 583 patients have died while 11,736 patients were discharged after reporting complete recovery, from private as well as municipal and state government hospitals in Surat.
Several people hailing from North Gujarat, Central Gujarat and Saurashtra, employed in the textile and the diamond industries, have started returning to Surat via road transport. On August 1, the health department had started to deploy teams at entry and exit points of Surat at Palsana, Kamrej and Kadodara, on National Highway 48, where passengers are medically screened with the help of pulse oximeters and thermal scanners.
To avoid being tested, people returning to Surat had started to travel on internal roads of the Olpad route. Similarly, those returning from Mumbai, Navsari and Valsad were using the internal route of Navsari. Subsequently, the SMC had deployed two teams each at Sachin and Olpad.
Deputy Health Commissioner of SMC, Dr AShish Naik said, “Since August 1, we have screened 1,839 passengers travelling in private vehicles.
Out of these, 35 passengers tested positive. At Surat railway station, 3,137 patients were screened out of which 28 patients tested positive. All those who tested positive were taken to the Covid care centre at SMIMER hospital. Our teams conduct random checking at these places. “