Gujarat CM in self-isolation after legislator tests positive

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was among five senior politicians who self-isolated themselves as a precautionary measure after they had a meeting with a legislator who later tested positive for the coronavirus.

Rupani had called a meeting to discuss the rising number of coronavirus positive cases in the walled city of Ahmedabad and Danilimda.

It was attended by Congress legislators Imran Khedawala, Gyasuddin Shaikh and Shailesh Parmar and Minister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja. They expressed their support to lockdown, suggesting relaxation for women to shop for essential commodities.

The three Congress legislators also met Chief Secretary Anil Mukim and Director General of Police Shivanand Jha.

Later on Tuesday, it turned out that the swab samples of Khedawala, taken during surveillance of Jamalpur Khadia area, turned out to be positive, triggering panic among all who met him in the afternoon.

On Tuesday evening itself, as Khedawala was rushed to hospital, Sheikh and Parmar got themselves home quarantined.

Sources said the chief minister, the deputy chief minister and the minister cancelled all their meetings yesterday and opted to isolate themselves at their homes in Gandhinagar.

Leading medical officials of the state, Dr R K Patel and Dr Atul Patel examined Rupani yesterday morning and expressed satisfaction on his health saying all his parameters were normal.

“The CM will be functioning from his residence and the administration will run as usual,” said his spokesman Ashwani Kumar.

The chief minister is handling the administration through technological aids like video conferencing, video calling and telephone.

An official order was also issued yesterday banning that anyone from meeting Rupani for a week.

With at least 65 corona positive cases being reported daily for the past one week, Gujarat has almost 700 positive cases from 23 of its 33 districts.

As testing intensifies, more positive cases are being detected, especially in Ahmedabad, which accounts for more than half the state’s total.

During the last week, over 430 positive cases were added – around 250 from Ahmedabad alone.

According to the health authorities, most of the positive cases were from areas where the Tablighi Jamaat members had returned from a meeting in Delhi’s Nizamuddin district.

The government then announced 28 hotspots in the state’s five major cities where a strict and ruthless lockdown was implemented.

Due to aggressive and intense surveillance and testing in the hotspots, the number of positive cases, starting from April 7 jumped from 144 to 378 in just four days.

Most cases in the spike were reported from Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Bhavnagar.

Later, the health authorities felt that the spike in the number of positive cases had reached a peak and no further rise was expected.

“We feel that the number of positive cases in the hotspots has reached a saturation point. From tomorrow we will be focusing on other areas of the state, where the virus has not shown its presence,” Jayanti Ravi, Gujarat health secretary, had said on April 10.

However, the numbers of positive cases spiked since then.

From a total of 378 in the state on the April 10, after five days, the count went up to 695 yesterday. Similarly, Ahmedabad saw a climb in positive cases from 197 to 404.