After festival duties, 8,500 Nagpur cops undergoing RT-PCR tests

NAGPUR: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and the city police have started compulsory RT-PCR testing of all the 8,500 cops as an additional preventive measure following the just-concluded festivities.
As on Wednesday, over 3,830 cops have been tested while remaining would be covered in the coming days. None of them has tested positive since the start of the drive from September second week.

CP Amitesh Kumar said that the plan to test all the cops stemmed from the fact that they could be potentially asymptomatic carriers and, hence, proactive precautionary measures were required.“The drive was launched after a cop’s father, who had never stepped out, and 12 cops who returned from Pune tested positive,” said the CP.
The CP said that the cops also got substantially exposed during Ganeshotsav bandobast and immersion, which “warranted a round of testing to find out any one positive among them, followed by isolation at the earliest”. Though all the cops are fully vaccinated, the city brass wanted to ensure they don’t become carriers.
Municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B said that the civic body is ready to perform as many daily tests as possible. “We are leaving nothing to chance. We need such measure to keep the cases low,” said the civic chief.
Dr Sandeep Shinde, medical officer at Police Headquarters hospital, said the drive is in continuation of the testing started since the detection of 12 positive cops. The 11 cops were among the 33 personnel who had returned from a training in Pune. All of them have been discharged from the MLA Hostel Covid Care centre.
The NMC has formed 14 teams for spot testing. Of these, 10 teams are visiting police stations in the proximity of their zones during morning and evening shifts.
Dr Shinde said the drive is being undertaken as per CP’s instructions. “A 24x7 unit is set up at the police hospital on Katol Road for any cop who needs to be tested. Additional staff too has been shortlisted for setting up five more units in every DCP zone offices,” he said.
The medical officer said that during second wave, 630 cops had tested positive while three had died. One the three deceased cops had tested positive after an accident while the other two had comorbidities. He said that 98% cops and their families have been vaccinated and only 2% breastfeeding mothers or allergic persons are remaining.
The city police has formed three teams. “One is for contact tracing, one to manage quarantine process and another just to look into the needs of cops and their families testing positive,” said Shinde.
While rest of the citizens can get jabbed between 11am and 5pm, vaccination centre is open 24x7 for cops and families.
Dr Shinde further said that 107 recruits at RPTS had been deployed on bandobast duties at various places across the state. “Of the 40 recruits deployed at Malegaon, one has tested positive. He has been shifted to MLA CCC,” said Dr Shinde.