20 passengers from UK test COVID-19 positive & contact tracing begins in India!

The COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus Pandemic, which brought the whole world to its knees did not have an outbreak with a bang! The Virus was initially noticed in very few people and as there was not widespread knowledge about it, not many containment efforts were put in place. When people eventually realised the devastation that this Virus would wreak, it had already spread far and wide and containment became absolutely impossible! However, after fighting long and hard, humanity cannot still proudly state that the Virus has been defeated for the vaccinations against it, have just begun and that too in only a very few countries. Despite that, over the last few days, we have been hearing about a mutated strain of the Corona Virus, spreading rapidly in the UK!

Unfortunately, despite announcing that all flights to and from the UK would be suspended from the midnight of December 22nd, some passengers who arrived in India from the UK before that, have tested positive for COVID-19! These infected passengers have been placed in institutional quarantine and their test samples have been sent to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for further study. Yesterday, the number of passengers who had arrived in India from the UK and tested positive for COVID, was at just 7! However, upon further testing, the numbers have now gone up to over 20! Initially, Delhi had reported 5 positive cases, following which Kolkata had reported 2 and Chennai had reported 1.

As the numbers are increasing, the states have initiated contact tracing to identify the people who were in close proximity to the people who have already tested positive for the Virus. The passenger who tested positive at the Chennai airport had in-fact travelled from the UK to India and had arrived at Chennai, through a domestic flight. All the people sitting in the adjoining and adjacent seats, within the proximity of the infected person, are being traced to conduct COVID tests on. Meanwhile, the Health Department has asked to track the health of the 1,088 passengers who returned from the UK in the last 7 days and subsequently, all the international passengers who arrived in India from November 25th are being tracked, to be tested. Now, the swab samples of those testing positive for COVID-19 are being sent to the National Institute of Virology for testing to see if they contain the new strain of the Corona Virus, spreading in the UK.