Even as a fourth person in Odisha, a 29-year-old of Bhadrak district, tested COVID-19 positive on Tuesday, the State Government on Wednesday identified two more persons in the State who had attended the religious congregation at the Markaz Nizamuddin, the headquarters of the religious sect Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi that has developed into one of the country’s biggest COVID -19 hotspots..
With this, a total of five out of the 15 people from Odisha, who had attended the congregation held from March 13 to March 15, have been identified and sent on quarantine. However, the rest 10 persons are yet to be identified.
The two persons identified on the day are the residents of Kendrapada and Jajpur districts. They were rescued by the district administrations and admitted to isolation wards of the respective District Headquarters Hospitals. Their blood and swab samples have been sent for test.
Besides, the families of the identified persons have been kept on home quarantine.
Police and Intelligence officials have also launched a hunt for the other Nizamuddin event attendees in Jajpur, Bhadrak, Nimapara and other places in the State to trace them.
Meanwhile, the Government on Wednesday released the detailed travel history of the State’s fourth coronavirus patient.
Government COVID-19 Chief Spokesperson Subroto Bagchi said, “Seven contacts of the fourth case have been traced. The patient had travelled from Dubai to Kolkata by flight-EK570 on March 18. He then travelled alone from the Kolkata airport to the Howrah railway station by taxi.”
“On that day, he came from Howrah by East Coast Express in coach No S-11 and reached the Bhadrak. From there, he reached home by an auto-rickshaw. Then, he was in home quarantine. His asymptomatic sample was collected on March 30 and it tested positive on March 31,” Baghi added.
Bagchi also informed that up to Wednesday noon, 610 samples had been tested in the State; and the number of positive cases stood at four. While 55 contacts of the first two positive cases are being traced,112 contacts of the third one have been identified and are in communication.
Besides, 88 persons are in hospital isolation. As many as 15,045 persons have registered themselves online and through 104 Health Helpline, out of which, 4,332 are from overseas and 10,713 from other States.