Adopting a more aggressive approach towards containing spread of Covid-19, the Jammu & Kashmir administration on Wednesday decided to conduct testing of over 2000 contact persons of positive cases with immediate effect.
At present 58 active cases, 48 in Kashmir division and 10 in Jammu division, are undergoing treatment in different hospitals.Addressing a press conference late Wednesday evening, spokesman of Jammu & Kashmir Government and Principal Secretary, Rohit Kansal told reporters, "we plan to test every single one of the 2000 contacts that we have identified".
He said, these contact persons were traced as a result of a vigorous contact tracing exercise undertaken by the different wings of the administration. So far 62 cases have tested positive in J&K, he added. "Out of these 58 are active cases including 48 from Kashmir division and 10 from Jammu division".
Kansal said, a total number of 17041 cases are under surveillance. Kansal told reporters, Jammu & Kashmir has been testing cases aggressively. Our testing rate has been nearly 77.5 per million,one of the highest in the country and next only to Kerala.
Due to sudden spike in positive cases, concerns were raised as it became clear that large number of suspected cases of coronavirus, who may have come in contact with religious teachers and identified positive cases, went untraceble and may lead to further spread of cases in rural pockets of vulnerable districts.
More than 30 villages across eight districts of Jammu & Kashmir have already been declared 'red zones by the government, thoroughly restricting movement of people from one place to another.
At present, 52 patients have been kept in hospital isolation, 516 under hospital quarantine, and 3961 under home surveillance. Out of 977 samples, 911 have tested negative and reports of four are awaited.
Meanwhile, in Srinagar, two hundred and thirty-six (236) persons who were shifted into administrative quarantine upon their return to Srinagar two weeks ago were discharged Wednesday after successfully completing their 14-day quarantine period.
All these persons had returned from different overseas countries with most of them having returned from Bangladesh. At present there are around 1900 persons who have been put under administrative quarantine in Srinagar after their return mostly from overseas countries.
While another group of around 370 persons will complete their quarantine and will be released on Thursday.