Goa on Friday reported another case of COVID-19, with a man with travel history testing positive. While this took the total number of positive cases to six in the tourist State, there are currently three people under hospital isolation and 1,000 under home quarantine.
The man, a Goan, has travel history to Mozambique and Kenya and arrived in Goa on March 19, via a domestic flight from Mumbai, and self-admitted himself. He tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday.
“We are in the process to quarantine his first contacts,” Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said, adding that a 50-year-old man who had died in the COVID-19 ward at Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC-H) had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, the deceased had tested negative.
After landing in Mumbai, the north Goa resident, who was working on a ship, had taken a domestic flight to Goa on March 19. Officials said the government was reaching out to all of his fellow passengers and crew on the flight.
“This sixth patient who tested positive had returned from a ship and self-quarantined himself after reaching Goa. He has had primary contact with five people who have all now been quarantined,” Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said.
The Chief Minister noted that of the 197 people tested for COVID-19, only three had tested positive. The government had placed 173 under quarantine and would do the same for 8,000 seafarers stranded in various international ports as and when the Central government facilitates their return.
On the issue of 46 people quarantined in connection with the Tablighi Jamaat conclave, the Chief Minister said that as per a police report about eight had attended the event at Nizamuddin, and that too before March 11.
“Our understanding is that they [Tabligh] have programmes continuously. There are many who attended an event in February. In all, our police has reported that 2,500 Goan families have connections with Tablighi Jamaat. The report mentions that four out of 46 people who attended Markaz-Nizamuddin at Delhi are Goans, while eight of 46 had travelled to Delhi in February, not March,” Dr. Sawant said.
In the wake of the harvesting season having commenced, the Chief Minister urged locals not to employ non-Goan labourers for harvesting and cashew cultivation and instead use those who were within the State. The government also empowered the district collectors to give special permission to people who want to come from neighbouring States.
Dr. Sawant assured students and parents that the schedule for the SSC, HSC Board exams and Goa University examinations would be declared 10 days in advance. “The government will consider average marks for Class IX. Those who fail will be given chance to give supplementary exams,” he said.
The Chief Minister informed that about 800 foreign tourists still remained in the State and that they would also be evacuated by April 4. Dr. Sawant appealed to the public to not ill-treat these foreigners, who had been in Goa since much before the pandemic had become so widespread.
About the consumption of fish and chicken, Dr. Sawant said allowing sale of fish in the market would disturb the efforts to ensure social distancing.
“We have asked fisheries’ societies to give in writing that they will take responsibility. None of them have do so. As far as chicken is concerned, most of it is imported from Karnataka, where cases of bird flu have been reported. That is why we have stopped chicken import, we will take a call in two days,” he said.
