NEW DELHI: A part of the active coronavirus cases that are galloping nationwide, comes from Indians stranded abroad who were evacuated recently during the ongoing Vande Bharat mission.
Their figures are not as big as that of the hapless migrants who went back to their villages and tested positive, but the infection count is steadily rising.
Take Kerala. Of the 10,011 people who returned through seaports and airports ever since the evacuation began on May 7, as many as 151 have tested positive for the virus.
Tamil Nadu, which is hassled by the steady rise in coronavirus — 8,230 active cases on Monday — counts 81 of them as repatriates, one reason why it is wary of opening the skies for domestic flights and insists on home quarantine of arriving fliers.
In Karnataka, three Vande Bharat arrivals tested positive on Monday, taking the total infection count among repatriates into three digits — 102.
The other big figure state is Andhra Pradesh, with 62 of the 1,169 evacuees testing positive, 45 of them on Monday alone. Of the 62 fliers, 41 had returned from Kuwait, three from Qatar and one from Saudi Arabia.
The situation elsewhere is comparatively better with Madhya Pradesh at 48 cases, Telangana 28, Haryana 22, Odisha 7, Punjab 4, and Assam 1.
For states, tracking these numbers is fairly easy as all of them are under quarantine. Many of the returnees were from countries with a high viral load.
Nationwide, there were 77,103 active cases on Monday.