Officials on toes as patients give wrong numbers, addresses

PROBLEM SURFACED AFTER TESTING WAS INCREASED IN THE STATE LAST MONTH AND MANY WERE FOUND INFECTED BY CORONAVIRUS

JALANDHAR : District officials across the state are concerned as suspected Covid-19 patients have been giving away wrong phone numbers and incomplete addresses at the time of testing.

They said when such persons turn out to be infected, the staff have to put extra efforts to trace them and their contacts.

This issue came to the fore after Covid-19 testing was increased in the state last month and many tested positive for the virus. At present, over 40,643 persons have tested positive for coronavirus disease in the state, while more than 8.85 lakh samples have been tested so far.

Kapurthala civil surgeon Dr Jasmit Kaur said when people come for their Covid-19 tests, they give incomplete addresses and wrong phone numbers due to which the district administration and police have to put additional efforts to reach them. She revealed that this was detected in 20 percent cases. Bawa said the reason behind patients not disclosing their correct details is the fear of taboo and potential impact on their work.

In Jalandhar district, which has the second highest number of coronavirus cases in the state, the health officials said such a problem was faced among 4 percent of the patients. The issue has came down to just four or less percent since August, earlier it was a bit higher, they said.

To overcome the problem, Jalandhar nodal officer Navneet Kaur Bal said we have asked the civil surgeon’s office to issue a direction to sample collection teams to take two contact numbers along with their complete address.

Amritsar civil surgeon Dr Jugal Kishore said they are facing difficulty due to wrong phone numbers and inadequate addresses for the past month, which creates hurdle in contact tracing.

Bathinda civil surgeon Dr Amrik Sandhu too acknowledged the problem said some people didn’t share their full address.