The health department of Uttarakhand has so far done an appreciable job of limiting the spread of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the State as only seven cases of the disease have been reported so far but the real test of department is ensuring successful quarantine of more than 8,000 people. The department has sent 8,452 people in different parts of the State into home and institutional quarantine. On the instruction of the Government, 245 followers of now infamous Tablighi Jamaat are under institutional quarantine in the State. The Jamaat headquarters in Nizamuddin area of Delhi has emerged as a major hot spot of the disease in the country. The experts believe that successful quarantine of all the suspected people is the key to success in the battle against the dreaded disease.
Meanwhile no new case of the disease was reported in Uttarakhand for fourth consecutive day on Thursday. The last case of the disease (7th in state) was reported on Sunday when an Army Subedar posted in Dehradun was found suffering from the disease. First two cases of the disease in the state- the IFS trainees - have recovered and have been discharged from the hospital.
The director general (DG) of state health services, Dr Amita Upreti said that test reports of 49 suspected patients were received by the department on Thursday and all of them were found negative for the disease. The department collected samples of 98 suspected patients on the day for test of COVID-19.
On Thursday, 53 samples were sent from Dehradun district for testing while 17 and 15 were sent from Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts.
The department has so far collected samples of 678 suspected patients and out of them seven have been so far found positive for COVID-19 and the results of 117 samples are awaited.
The health department has converted 15 major hospitals of the state into dedicated centres for treatment of COVID-19.
A total of 121 suspected patients are in hospital isolation in the State.