Team Herald
PANJIM: Nine more persons tested positive for COVID-19 in the State on Sunday, taking Goa’s tally to 22 cases with seven recoveries.
Nearly 10 passengers of Rajdhani Express tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two days. All passengers who were in the coaches which had the presence of the COVID-19 positive cases, have been sent to institutional quarantine for 14 days.
In addition to the train passengers, a 23-year-old pharma employee tested positive on Sunday.
“A lady passenger who had travelled to Goa on Delhi train on Saturday tested positive for COVID-19 infection during TrueNat testing. A total of three passengers, including two men, from the Delhi train, tested positive so far. 56 more tests are underway,” Health Minister Vishwajit Rane informed on Sunday morning.
The two male passengers who were tested positive during TrueNat testing were confirmed at GMC’s virology lab.
Later during the day, the minister confirmed that another 8-10 passengers who travelled by the same train had tested positive during TrueNat test while final confirmation was awaited.
“All those passengers who were in the coaches of Delhi-Goa train where positive cases (are detected), have been taken to institutional quarantine. They will be kept there for 14 days after which tests would be repeated on them,” Rane said.
All the passengers who alighted from the Delhi- Thiruvananthapuram train at Margao railway station on Saturday were taken to the district hospital, Margao for testing, and later quarantined at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Fatorda. In all, the district hospital has tested over 500 samples drawn from different sources since Saturday.
Later during the day on Sunday, 23-year-old male worker from Karwar was tested positive for the virus. He had come to Goa along with other workers to join duty at a pharma company where he is employed. Rane said the worker had entered Goa from Pollem checkpost on May 14 and quarantined at Vasco.
All the active cases have been transferred to the COVID-19 hospital, Rane said.
Rane further informed that they are in the process of increasing the TrueNat testing facilities in Hospicio, Asilo and Sub District Hospital at Ponda. “Our aim is to increase the number of machines and recruit additional microbiologists, MD microbiologists and MSc microbiologists at these hospitals to ramp up the testing. Besides this there will be more technicians on board so we can test 1500-2000 approx people in a day,” he said.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, later in the evening, revealed that Goa has 18 active cases of which only two are symptomatic while rest are asymptomatic.
Sawant, allayed apprehensions on the tests being conducted stating that Goa is the only state that is testing people before entering the State either via road, rail or air.
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399 in facility quarantine
A total of 399 persons were placed in facility quarantine while 225 persons have been directed home quarantine after they travelled to Goa from other States.
On Sunday, 997 samples were sent for testing and 456 reports including that of the train travelers are awaited. Nine samples tested positive while 527 tested negative.
The health bulletin further said eight are in isolation.
