Srinagar: Five persons including father, wife, and servant of a doctor who tested positive have contracted the disease, taking the number of COVID-19 patients in Jammu and Kashmir to 67, according to a report in Jammu-based newspaper on Thursday. While 50 of the COVID-19 patients are in Kashmir, 17 are in Jammu.
The mother of the doctor, who works in the Microbiology Department in the Government Medical College Jammu, has tested negative. Two more persons are contacts of COVID-19 patients from Udhampur district.
The doctor had tested positive on Monday and his family members and contacts were tested for Coronavirus.
Principal Secretary Planning, Information and Government Spokesperson, Rohit Kansal yesterday informed that the government was conscious that there has been concern among the public at large about the cases being tested positive. “However we would like to emphasize we have a robust tracing process. Many of the positive cases could be traced as a result of a vigorous contact tracing exercise undertaken by the administration. As a result, we were able to trace many cases including some that were asymptomatic. This is important because if not traced these cases could have continued in the general population and could even have infected more cases,” he said.
The government spokesperson said that nearly 2000 contacts of positive cases have been identified. “We have issued instructions that no known contact be left untraced. I had mentioned last time that this is bound to lead to some inconvenience. Hot spots would need to be isolated and sealed and movements fully restricted,” he said while appealing people for their cooperation. “Believe me, it is worth the trouble and effort. Every single case detected and traced means so many more have been prevented from being infected.”
Kansal claimed that the government has been testing cases aggressively and it was among the first to start testing locally through 4 testing centers. “Our testing rate has been nearly 77.5 per million, one of the highest in the country and next only to Kerala. We have decided to further increase it. To begin with, we plan to test every single one of the 2000 contacts that we have identified,” he said.
