Covid patient jumps quarantine to meet newborn back home

LEFT FOR UTTARAKHAND FROM COVID CENTRE IN SECTOR 22 BEFORE HE COULD BE MOVED TO ANOTHER FACILITY IN PU

CHANDIGARH : A Covid-19 patient admitted in a quarantine facility here went missing on Saturday morning. However, he was later apprehended and quarantined in Uttarakhand, where he had gone to check up on his newborn baby.

The patient, identified as Mohammad Arif of Haridwar in Uttrakhand, allegedly escaped from Sood Dharamshala in Sector 22, which houses a Covid centre and post-discharge quarantine facility.

Sood Dharamshala nodal officer Shreya told the police that Arif, who had come to Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research for his son’s treatment, was tested positive for Covid-19 and referred here on July 29. He was supposed to be shifted from Sood Dharamshala to the Covid centre set up at Panjab University on Saturday morning, but he was nowhere to be found.

Arif’s roommate said when he didn’t see him there at night, he assumed that he (Arif) had been shifted to the PU Covid centre.

Officials said Arif’s wife had recently delivered a baby who was sick, so Arif escaped the quarantine facility and travelled all the way to Uttarakhand to see his child at the Roorkee civil hospital. Arif has now been quarantined there as per the protocol.

Police said a team has left for Roorkee to examine how Arif had been able to break out of the Covid centre. A case has been registered under sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the Indian Penal Code.

Earlier on May 5, a Covid patient in Sector 56 had got out of self-isolation and rode to his village in Uttar Pradesh on a motorcycle.