Infections rise in four states after migrants return

THE NUMBER OF RETURNEES HAS GONE UP SINCE BUSES IN LATE APRIL AND SPECIAL SHRAMIK TRAINS WERE ARRANGED FOR MIGRANTS FROM MAY 1

nPATNA/JAIPUR: The return of migrants workers from Delhi and Mumbai, the two worst-hit cities by the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, has led to a spike in the infections in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, officials in these states said.

Migrant workers left jobless by the lockdown imposed to check the pandemic spread in late March have been cycling and walking back to their homes from big cities like Mumbai and Delhi. The number of returnees has gone up since buses in late April and special Shramik trains were arranged for them beginning May 1.

As many as 759 migrants have tested positive for Covid-19 since May 1 in Rajasthan. Officials said a majority of them have returned from Mumbai. Barring Jaipur, Kota, Bundi and Ganganagar, migrants have been tested positive for the disease in the rest of 29 Rajasthan districts including Bhilwara, which had reported no infections for almost 20 days.

Till now, 5,87,880 migrant workers have returned to Rajasthan and the state has 5,507 Covid-19 cases.

Rajasthan’s additional chief secretary (health) Rohit K Singh said they have marked 11 districts as red as they fear an escalation in the number of cases as most migrant workers are expected to return in the coming days.

He added they were upgrading medical infrastructure in these districts like Barmer, Udaipur, Bikaner, Bhilwara, Jodhpur and Rajsamand. Singh said a majority of the workers found Covid-19 positive have returned from Mumbai and Gujarat.

Bhilwara collector Rajendra Bhatt said 42 migrants have been diagnosed with the disease and a majority of them-- 30--have returned to the district from Mumbai, followed by Gujarat (10) and Madhya Pradesh (2).

Migrant workers account for 159 out of 164 cases in Dungarpur and most of them have returned from Mumbai, said district collector Kana Ram. His Pali counterpart, Ansh Deep, said a majority of the infected people in his district, too, have arrived from Mumbai where they worked as vegetable, fruit and ice-cream vendors.

Bihar’s principal secretary (health) Sanjay Kumar said 26% of the migrant workers tested Covid-19 positive have returned from Delhi. “Of the 8,337 samples of migrant tested so far, 651 (8%) have been reported positive...,” Kumar said on Monday.

About half of the cases in Bihar (1,392) were migrants who have returned since May 3. As many as 26% of them have come from Delhi followed by 12% from West Bengal, 11% from Maharashtra, 9% from Haryana and 7% from Gujarat. “The health department has been very attentive to the arrival of migrants and [is] analysing data on a continuous basis,” Kumar said.

According to the Karnataka health department’s data, migrants from Mumbai accounted for 66 of the 99 new cases reported on Monday. Karnataka has reported 1,692 total cases and half of them are those, who have returned to the state after May 1.

Uttar Pradesh has not provided data on how many migrant workers have tested positive, but health officials said a large number of them, who have returned from Delhi and Mumbai, have been diagnosed with the disease.

“More than half of the workers, who have tested positive, are from Delhi and about one-fourth from Mumbai. Fortunately, all of them are in quarantine centres and have no symptoms,” said an official in Saharanpur district, who did not want to be named.