With 20 new positive cases reported on Tuesday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Punjab has reached 99.
Of the fresh cases, seven persons are from Jawaharpur village in Mohali. They are primary contacts of the patients being treated in Chandigarh. The Mohali Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan said that the village has been declared a corona cluster and has been sealed. According to an update posted by him on social media, the authorities have so far surveyed 522 houses and took samples from 118 people.
Six cases were reported from Pathankot, four from Moga, two from Mansa and one from Amritsar. Those tested positive in Mansa are Jamaatis who had attended Nizamuddin Markaz event.
Meanwhile, four people staying at a mosque at Cheeda village in Moga too have tested positive. They had lived with nine others who had attended Markaz.
The Pathankot cases had neither travelled anywhere recently nor had any relatives visiting them from abroad. One of these is a 78-year-old man whose wife had died of COVID-19 complications recently.
Meanwhile, the body of a 65-year-old COVID-19 victim was creamed by the administration after his family refused to conduct the funeral. The victim was a retired Additional Commissioner (Technical) of the Amritsar Municipal Corporation. This is the fourth such instance in the state.
On April 5, the last rites of a woman were performed by officials in Ludhiana city as the family refused to cremate the body fearing transmission of virus. Similarly, in another death from the same area, the cremation was performed by the revenue staff. The locals of Verka village in Amritsar had refused to let their cremation ground be used for cremating COVID-19 victim Nirmal Singh Khalsa, former Hazoori Raagi of the Golden Temple.
"The (last rites) document may be comprehensive but the real trouble lies when nobody, including the sons and daughters as well as staff at the cremation ground, is willing to touch the body. It is here that the field revenue agency, with tehsildars and naib tehsildars at the forefront, does the job. We need to recognize and laud the effort,” Special Chief Secretary K.B.S. Sidhu, who is in-charge to monitor state-wide coronavirus cases, tweeted.
On Tuesday, Chandigarh Administration has mandated wearing of masks in public places to check the virus transmission. The cops on duty have been asked to keep a check and administration is mulling over quantum of penalty. With this deceleration, it becomes the first Union Territory that has made wearing masks mandatory.
Meanwhile US Embassy and Canadian High Commission on Tuesday operated special chartered flights to evacuate their citizens and permanent residents or green card holders from Punjab.
Ninety-five passengers flew to the US at 8 pm while 208 passengers are listed to fly to Canada late in the night. Sidhu in a tweet claimed all were screened before boarding. He also tweeted that flights to other countries including the UK are possible in next few days.
