UP: 11 cases in 24 hours; officials in Noida on toes

Bareilly Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Vineet Kumar Shukla said that the 34-year-old man had returned to his home in Bareilly, a week ago. “So far, six of his family members have been traced and put in institutional quarantine. Their samples have been taken for testing,” said the CMO.

Meanwhile, Noida police registered an FIR against the company’s managing director under IPC sections 45 (definition of life), 188 (disobeying public order), 269 (lawfully/unlawfully spreading infection) and 270 (punishment for spreading disease).

The FIR alleged that the company did not inform the health authorities about the visit of a British National in the middle of March after which the people got infected by coronavirus.

According to officials, a British national visited the firm between March 14 and 16 for an audit and that information was not passed on to the Health Department. Health officials said that have sealed the areas where the infected persons reside and they are being sanitised. The screening process of residents and contacts in the area have has also begun.

In neighbouring Ghaziabad, the two new persons, who tested positive, are a couple in their late thirties. “The woman works in the same fire safety firm in Noida, while her husband works in an insurance company. They have an 8-year-old son who has tested negative. So far, we have found that the couple was in touch with 70 more people. We are monitoring the situation and the patients are receiving due treatment,” said NK Gupta, CMO Ghaziabad.

Health officials in Ghaziabad said that they have set up a 10-bed isolation ward at Santosh Hospital, and another 150 beds are being prepared.

The four new cases in Meerut are the wife and the brothers-in-law of a 50-year-old man who had come to visit his family from Amravati and Maharashtra and had tested positive on Saturday. (See the adjoining report)

With this, the total number of cases from Noida has reached 31, along with ten cases from Agra, eight from Lucknow, seven from Ghaziabad, five from Meerut, two each from Varanasi and Pilibhit and one each from Lakhimpur Kheri, Moradabad, Kanpur, Jaunpur, Shamli, Baghpat and Bareilly. Till date, 14 people, including seven from Agra, four from Noida, two from Ghaziabad and one from Lucknow, have been declared recovered and discharged from the hospital.

Meanwhile, Principal Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said that all the coronavirus cases reported so far in the state can be traced back and no case of community spread has been reported yet.

“We are constantly monitoring Noida and Ghaziabad. Following the instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, senior officer Dr A P Chaturvedi has been posted for a month to monitor the condition in Noida and Ghaziabad and get the work done promptly. The number of isolation and quarantine beds is being continuously increased in the state. Along with this, the government is going to purchase 200 ventilators,” he said.

“Level-1 hospitals are also ready in all the districts, which are dedicated COVID hospitals at community health centres (CHCs). The work for Level-2 hospital will be completed in three to four days, while Level-3 hospitals are being set up at half a dozen places in the state, where ventilators are available in sufficient numbers. Private hospitals will also be converted into dedicated COVID hospitals,” said Prasad.

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