Gurugram: Testing must for inmates before being taken to court

GURUGRAM: In order to ensure that staff at the courts are protected from the spread of coronavirus, a rapid antigen test will be carried out on every inmate before producing them in front of a judicial officer. The test will be carried out by the health department and after the reports, that will be out in an hour, show negative, the accused will be taken to court. This decision comes a day after 16 inmates of Bhondsi jail tested positive in the city.
The antigen tests for the accused will be carried out in Sector 10 Civil Hospital from 9 am to 11 am. This precaution has been taken as the numbers of cases among jail inmates rose to 50. On Thursday, 18 inmates tested positive. They came in contact with other inmates who had tested positive earlier. They have been shifted to Sector 9 isolation centre.
“We will conduct a rapid antigen test for all accused before produced them in court as directed by the district and session judge, Gurugram, and the commissioner of police to check the spread of the virus in courtrooms,” said chief medical officer Virender Yadav.
The city on Thursday reported 224 new Covid cases. First time in two months the city crossed the 200 cases mark. The city’s Covid tally stands at 12,521 cases. The health department said 102 people recovered from Covid-19 on Thursday, bringing the total number of recoveries to 11,121. However, two patients succumbed to the infection on Thursday, officials said. Till date, 135 people died of Covid in the city, of whom 94 had comorbidities.
On Thursday, 19 people were put under government quarantine. The city has a total of 1,265 active cases, of which 1,088 are in home isolation. The health authorities were able to collect 2,494 samples in the past 24 hours for antigen and RT-PCR tests.
So far,1,79,609 people have been put under surveillance. The health department has sent 1,73,775 samples for testing, of which 1,58,760 turned out to be negative, while the results of 1322 are still awaited.