Textile shop owner, 18 staffers test positive, Coimbatore officials say shop was closed twice for violating norms

COIMBATORE: Days after a textile shop owner and his 18 employees in Masakalipalayam tested positive for Covid-19, it has emerged that the shop in Lal Bahadur Nagar near Masakalipalayam was closed twice by the revenue department and city corporation for violating the social distancing norms. 

The shop owner and the employees tested positive on Sunday. According to a revenue department official, the showroom had been closed just earlier that week, on June 24, citing violation of physical distancing rules. In the meanwhile, a senior staff of the shop with travel history tested positive for Covid-19. Despite this and in defiance of the rules, the shop owner allegedly reopened the showroom the very next day. The shop was again closed by the Coimbatore Corporation officials on June 26, officials said.  

A senior official of the health department said they had started tracking customers who had visited the shop with the help of CCTV footage and the visitors' record book. The samples of people who were placed under home quarantine are also being tested, said the corporation officials. 

Incidentally, the shop owner and his employees are the first Covid-19 patients in Coimbatore to be placed at a Covid Care Centre (CCC), at Uppilipalayam, for treatment, as per the protocol to treat asymptomatic patients.