At least nine new cases of Covid-19 infection were reported in Jharkhand on Monday – one each from Hazaribag, East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Dhanbad, Gumla and Garhwa, and three from Latehar, health officials said. Monday's test reports take the total count of coronavirus cases in State to 232, they added.
Most of the Covid-19 suspects who tested positive in the past fortnight are migrant workers, officials said. The nine Covid-19 cases reported on Monday are also of mostly migrant workers, they added. The man, who tested positive in Hazaribag, worked at a Pav Bhaji stall in Mumbai, sources said. He may have got infected in the Maharashtra capital itself, they added.
"Nine cases were reported on Monday. Most of them are migrant workers who returned home recently," said Health Secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni. Kulkarni said that at least 93 migrant workers who returned from other states have tested positive since May 5 – a statement that clarifies how the return of migrant workers was causing an upward trend in the Covid-19 trajectory here.
The number of containment zones in Jharkhand have also increased from 33 to 63 in the course of a fortnight, officials said.
They added that 25 red zones have been identified across the country, and passengers traveling to Jharkhand from these zones will be put in Government quarantine for tests.
They will later be allowed to stay in home quarantine.
According to National Health Mission (NHM), at least 127 of the 232 patients here – more than 50 per cent– have recovered from the viral infection and discharged from hospital. Interestingly, most of them did not show any of the Covid-19 symptoms during their treatment, said doctors from Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi.
While 117 of the 232 cases reported in Jharkhand by Monday evening are in the age bracket of 11 to 30 years, 78 are in the age bracket of 31 to 50 years, the NHM report said. At least nine children, below the age of 10 years, have been infected by the virus in Jharkhand so far, the report added.
The Government has collected samples of around 40,000 suspects so far, and tested 35,000 of them, an NHM bulletin said.
As many as 1552 samples were tested on Wednesday and nine of them came out positive, the bulletin further said.