One more novel coronavirus case was confirmed in Bokaro on Friday, a day after the district reported four new cases including a 75-year-old man who became the first person in Jharkhand to die of Covid-19.
With this, the total number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in the state stood at 14.
The latest person to test positive for SARS-Cov-2 or the novel coronavirus was already under quarantine. The 35-year-old has no travel history, officials said, but is a close relative of a woman with travel history to Dhaka and Delhi who had earlier tested positive for the virus.
On Thursday, three of her family members had tested positive. The 35-year-old man is the fourth person from the same family to test positive.
After his test result came positive, he was shifted to the special Covid-19 ward of Bokaro General Hospital.
“He is completely asymptomatic and his first test had come negative,” said Bokaro deputy commissioner (DC) Mukesh Kumar. “But his second test came positive. We are trying to ascertain his travel history, if any, besides his contact history. We have completely locked down the village besides another neighbouring village. People (of these two villages) are not allowed to come out of their house. We have ensured door to door supply of essential items through our volunteers. Officials of the district administration are camping in affected localities.”
The entire government machinery was pressed into contact tracing and sources in the district administration said they had tracked down 32 persons who had came in contact with this man.
All of them will be taken to the district quarantine centre at Guru Govind Singh Engineering College.
“We are focusing on sample collection of maximum people because it will help us in early detection of cases that will further help us to stop proliferation of the virus. We are also taking samples of doctors of Bokaro General Hospital,” said DC Kumar.
The district administration has also set up flying squads to rigorously implement the lockdown and to ensure social distancing norms are adhered to.
For instance, additional municipal commissioner Shashi Prakash Jha has been given charge of the Chas locality.
Other officials who will head flying squads at different localities are district cooperative officer Rakesh Kumar Singh, district transport officer Santosh Kumar Garg, executive magistrates Manisha Vats, Prabhas Dutta and Jayant Jerome Lakra, district planning officer Devesh Gautam, land reforms deputy
collector James Surin, and
district panchayat officer
Rajasekhar.
