CHANDIGARH: A 63-year-old woman in Patiala died of coronavirus on Monday, taking the total number of COVID-19-related deaths to 19 in Punjab, officials said.
Official said that the coronavirus-positive woman, who was undergoing treatment at the Rajindra hospital in Patiala, died of the virus. Eight more persons, all of them pilgrims who returned from Nanded in Maharashtra, tested positive for coronavirus, taking the total count of confirmed cases to 330 in the state.
According to a medical bulletin released on Monday night, five persons belonged to Tarn Taran and three hailed from Kapurthala. Coronavirus patients was detected for the first time in Tarn Taran. The source of their infection is likely from outside Punjab, said the medical bulletin.
The first batch of pilgrims, who were stuck at Hazur Sahib in Nanded, have returned to their respective places in the state. Around 4,000 pilgrims from Punjab, who had gone to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Hazur Sahib in Nanded in Maharashtra, had been stuck there because of the lockdown.
But after the Union Home ministry intervened at the instance of the Punjab government and the Akali Dal, all these pilgrims are now being brought to their home state.
Apart from them, 2,900 labourers, belonging to Punjab, are returning to the state in buses from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, where they were stranded in five relief camps, an official statement said. "5 of Nanded returnees have tested positive for COVID-19. About 4000 persons from Nanded and 3,000 from Jaisalmer have already started reaching various districts in the State. It has been decided to put them in government quarantine and test everybody. Accordingly, place all of them in Government quarantine immediately," Punjab's special chief secretary KBS Sidhu tweeted.
Twelve coronavirus patients "six from Mohali, five from Amritsar and one from Patiala were discharged from hospitals, taking the total number of cured patients to 98 in the state," as per medical bulletin. Jalandhar district continued to lead the COVID-19 tally in the state with 78 coronavirus cases, followed by 63 in Mohali, as per the bulletin.
Of the 330 cases, 61 cases were reported in Patiala so far, followed by 25 in Pathankot, 20 in SBS Nagar, 18 in Ludhiana, 14 in Amritsar, 13 in Mansa, seven in Hoshiarpur, six in Kapurthala, five in Tarn Taran, four in Moga, three each in Rupnagar, Sangrur and Faridkot, two each in Fatehgarh Sahib and Barnala, and one each in Muktsar, Gurdsapur and Ferozepur.
Of the total cases, 19 have died, as per bulletin. A total of 15,516 samples have been taken so far in the state and of which, 12,333 samples have tested negative and reports of 2,853 samples are still awaited. There are 213 active cases in the state, it said.