87 on Mumbai to Haridwar Shramik Special test Covid positive

DEHRADUN: Besides the 55 passengers who were found positive on Saturday, 32 more passengers of the MumbaiHaridwar ‘Shramik Special’, were found Covid-19-positive on Sunday. Health department officials confirmed that cases may double in the next couple of days as reports of over 3,000 samples are pending in four different labs across the state.

Officials said around 1,500 passengers of Mumbai-Haridwar ‘Shramik Special’ had de-boarded at Haridwar railway station on May 20 and were sent to various districts in around 15 different buses. The passengers who tested positive were from the buses bound for Almora, Nainital and Bageshwar.

Yugal Kishore Pant, additional secretary (health), said, “As many as 32 more positive cases from Shramik Special were reported on Sunday and till now total 87 have been found positive. We are awaiting more reports in the next couple of days.”

Haridwar DM C Ravishankar said over 450 samples of passengers of the same train were collected in Haridwar itself on May 20 and the department has got some reports while many are still pending.

Meanwhile, overburdened with around 1,000 new samples collected between May 20 and 23, AIIMS Rishikesh has stopped taking more samples on Sunday. Rakesh Thapliyal, PRO of AIIMS Rishikesh, confirmed that the institution is working on clearing the pending cases which are over 1,000.

Chief secretary Utpal Kumar, sharing the new treatment guidelines of Covid-19 patients, said all new positive patients would be under surveillance for the next 10 days and if they don’t develop any critical symptoms between the 7th and 10th day, they would be discharged.