After screening as many as 24 lakh people for coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) symptoms by deploying 650 teams of health workers over a nine-day period, the administration in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district has readied facilities to quarantine 15,000 persons to meet an emergency situation. Bhilwara has been the State’s worst-hit area during the ongoing crisis after the infection spread in a private hospital.
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The industrial hub, known for its cloth manufacturing units, has so far reported 26 COVID-19 positive cases, which comprise about half the State’s tally of patients. A 40-year-old man, who was an OPD patient in the hospital which has since been sealed, tested positive on Monday.
The maximum number of 1,194 samples in the State have been tested in Bhilwara. Of these, 1,045 tested negative, while the reports on 123 were awaited. All the infection cases were connected to the private hospital, where three doctors and several paramedical staff members had initially shown symptoms and turned out to be positive when their samples were tested.
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Mahatma Gandhi Government Hospital’s Principal Medical Officer Arun Gaur said on Monday that 14 coronavirus-infected patients were at present admitted to the hospital’s isolation ward and five of them had tested negative after treatment.
The administration has taken control of several private hospitals and asked hotels and resorts in the city to keep their rooms ready to quarantine patients in case of emergency. District Collector Rajendra Bhatt said the curfew clamped in the municipal limits of Bhilwara on March 20 would be enforced with greater strictness between April 3 and 13, when nobody would be allowed to step out of home and only essential supplies would be allowed to be delivered under the administration’s supervision.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot praised the administration and health officials of Bhilwara for their tireless efforts to control the pandemic. “The massive screening in a short duration and quarantine measures will help save many lives... Much appreciation for the entire team in Bhilwara,” he tweeted.
Elsewhere in Rajasthan, seven of the evacuees brought by special flights from Iran and accommodated in the Army’s wellness centres in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer tested COVID-19 positive on Monday. The mother and son of a man earlier found positive in Jaipur’s Ramganj area, which has been put under curfew, also tested positive, taking the State’s tally of confirmed patients to 62.
