COVID-19 outbreak: Panicky Manipal students try to leave campus sans negative reports

UDUPI: Students trying to return to their hometowns from the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) campus at Manipal, which has been cordoned off since Wednesday, without RTPCR negative reports raised an alarm on Thursday evening.

Administrators of MIT, after directions from the health department, had allowed around 130 students with RTPCR negative reports to return home. These students were given one day to leave the campus.

When other students came to know about it, they panicked and around 200 of them tried to move out of the campus without RTPCR negative reports.

The campus has eight gates and after it was declared a ‘containment zone’, the movement of students has been restricted to one gate. Manjunath M, inspector, Manipal police station, told TNIE that some students had to be stopped as they tried to leave without RTPCR negative reports.

ADC Sadashiva Prabhu said that though 5,000 students are yet to be tested, priority will be given to primary contacts of the infected in the first phase of the test, which will be completed within two days.

“We will cover the remaining students in the second phase,” he said. 

Sources said that the district administration may also conduct Covid tests for primary contacts on the seventh day and allow those who test negative to go home.

However, a decision on this is yet to be finalised.