For every positive COVID-19 case, Patiala health department quarantined 172 people

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 8

Patiala has put the maximum efforts in stemming the spread of COVOD-19 by quarantining 172 people so far for every single positive COVID-19 case, which is the highest in the state.

With this, Patiala has already achieved the tag of the best contact-tracing district in the state. The district health department had home quarantined 15,885 people as of May 6, stated the state health department.

After Patiala, Ropar quarantined 104 people for every positive patient. Amritsar, which has the highest positive cases of COVID-19, quarantined only 435 people – just two people per positive patient.

With this, Amritsar has the lowest number in quarantining people across the state. Amritsar is closely followed by Faridkot, where only three people had been home quarantined for every single patient.

The officials at the Patiala Health department said the figures showed that they had put most efforts in contact tracing. The officials claimed that it was the effective contact tracing that made it possible to contain the spread in the district.

“Despite an outbreak in Rajpura, we were able to break the chain. We try to trace every possible contact of the positive patient, including low-risk contacts,” said an official involved in contact tracing.

Apart from this, health officials said the strategy of effective contact tracing left no loose end because even one contact of positive patient could lead to outbreak.

Initially, department did face hurdles in contact tracing because the positive patient in several instances tried to hide their movements and travel history.

In one such incident, a social worker in Patiala, who was tested positive for COVID-19, initially hid his movement to Zirakpur during the strict curfew to help his book-trader friend. But, on the insistence of the health department, the former had to give-in and revealed the name of his friend, who later tested positive for COVID-19.

Reacting to this achievement, Patiala Civil Surgeon Dr Harish Malhotra, said: “It was the result of the collective efforts of our dedicated staff that include district epidemiologist, nodal officer, Senior Medical officers, ANMs and other staff who worked 24×7.