A worrying 22 per cent of migrant workers returning to their native places from outside Uttar Pradesh have tested positive for coronavirus infection, triggering a sudden spike in the total number of cases.
Admitting the fact on Thursday, Principal Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said, “The number of coronavirus cases has gone up due to influx of migrant workers. Against the state average of 2.6 per of tests being positive, the statistics stand at a whopping 22.2 per cent in case of migrant workers. This is naturally a matter of concern.”
The senior official said that detection of such large number of coronavirus positive cases in migrant returnees was alarming as it was almost nine times more than the state average.
“Now it is the duty of gram and mohalla nigrani samitis to own up responsibility and monitor these workers in home quarantine,” he said.
Prasad further said that Asha Bahus carried out a survey of 4.75 lakh migrants in home quarantine and of them, 562 were found to have symptoms and during tests 125 were found to be coronavirus positive.
Earlier, the state government claimed that over 11 lakh migrant workers had reached Uttar Pradesh so far and all were quarantined and were being screened strictly. It said only when the migrants were found without any symptoms, they were sent to home quarantine for 21 days.
The government has now asked for pool tests of migrant workers after several of them were detected coronavirus positive in the last one week.
The principal secretary said that on Monday, 6,870 samples were tested along with 693 pools of 10 samples each and of the pools, 48 were positive.
The Health department was also taking help of Aarogya app to alert people and made calls to 20,768 people to enquire about their health. Of these, 50 were found coronavirus positive, 23 had recovered from the virus and 181 people were in quarantine.
The total active cases in Uttar Pradesh are 1,847 in 72 districts while 2,783 people have recovered.
Meanwhile, on directions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Health department will set up testing labs in all 75 districts and tests for all virus related diseases, including coronavirus, would be done there.