CHANDIGARH: With two more coronavirus cases surfacing in Mohali district on Tuesday, the total count here has risen to 56 topping Punjab in COVID-19 cases as a hotspot. Of these, 38 cases are from Jawaharpur village of Dera Bassi sub-division in the district and out of them 28 belong to two families which are related to each other.
It is learnt that the extended families of a woman Sarpanch and Panch have 28 positive cases and both are cousins. While today a 56-year-old woman from this village tested positive for the virus, her family members have already tested positive. With this, the total number of coronavirus cases in Jawaharpur village has now touched 38. Of these 38 positive cases, no one has any travel history as most of them were asymptomatic and were detected only through testing. Some Tablighi Jamaat members had stayed in the village but had left before anyone could get information about them.
A factory owner who was also the member of the local panchayat was the first to get the virus, which then infected his wife, father, brothers, and then his cousin, the woman sarpanch of the village and her family members-husband and daughter besides others. They had organised langars (community kitchens), distributed medicines and masks among the needy and migrant labourers last week.
The first positive case in the village was reported on April 4-that of the panch of the village.
The other case which came today was of a 36-year-old woman from Mundi Kharar who tested positive. She is the maid of the 78-year-old woman who had died on April 7 at the civil hospital in Kharar after testing positive for COVID. Afterwards, her husband a retired Ayurveda doctor had also tested positive.
Both the new cases detected today have been admitted to the isolation ward of the Gian Sagar Hospital in Banur.
The village had already been sealed and strict curfew has been imposed in the village to check the spread of coronavirus and drones are also being used to keep a check on the movement of people within the village. Twenty-five policemen, including COVID commandos are already been deployed in the village so that nobody steps out of their houses.
Deputy Commissioner of Mohali, Girish Dayalan said that the district administration was undertaking extensive contact tracing exercises and sampling, which is leading to the identification of more cases. "The containment protocol is being strictly followed in the village," he said.
Civil Surgeon of Mohali, Dr Manjit Singh said that teams had been deputed for the villages to take the samples of the women's family members and other contacts.