P’kula police station cook positive, Covid-19 tally 20

OF 83 COPS AND POLICE STAFF, ONLY THE COOK TESTED POSITIVE; SHE, ALONG WITH HER FAMILY, IS NOW IN ISOLATION IN KURUKSHETRA

PANCHKULA : With a 27-year-old female mess assistant at the Sector 5 police station testing positive on Saturday, Panchkula district’s Covid tally touched 20. Of these, 17 patients have already been cured, leaving three active cases in the district.

Panchkula civil surgeon Dr Jasjeet Kaur said the woman is a native of Harigarh village, Pehowa in Kurukshetra, and was staying at the women’s police station in Sector 5. She said that 83 blood samples of police personnel and other employees working at police posts, police stations and check posts in Panchkula were taken for testing on May 5, but only the cook tested positive.

District Covid-19 nodal officer, Dr Rajiv Narwal, said the cook had gone to her native village in Kurukshetra on May 7. “We have informed the health department team in Kurukshetra. We have isolated her immediate contacts, of which five women constables whom she was sharing the room with during her stay here, are being tested,” he said.

As per officials, the woman cooked and carried water to the police station and her source of infection has not been ascertained as yet. Officials said the woman’s family members– husband, five-year-old daughter, her in-laws–in Kurukshetra have also been isolated there.

For 18 days, Panchkula district registered no Covid case, following which on Friday, a 44-year-old milk vendor-cum-confectioner from Rajiv Colony near Sector 16/17 tested positive. The district administration on Saturday declared some of the area in colony as containment zone and the remaining as buffer zone.