SRINAGAR: Ten more persons tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Kashmir on Saturday. Eight of them had come in contact with Covid-19 positive patients, with five having attended a religious congregation along with the Tableegi Jamaat religious preacher from Sopore who died of the infection on Thursday. The other two have a travel history to Mumbai.
Besides, three persons in Jammu also tested positive of Covid-19 on Saturday.
Government spokesman tweeted in the evening: “Hardly do I finish my press briefing -28 cases-that I get more unpleasant news -5 new positive cases- 2 in Srinagar, 3 in Jammu- all contacts of previously positive ones ; All Jammu cases asymptomatic. We are at 33 now.”
Also in the evening, a doctor from SKIMS Soura told Kashmir Reader that a young boy from Pulwama has tested positive at the Virology lab of the premier institute.
“He is also part of Tableegi Jamaat and was in contact with the already confirmed case,” the doctor said.
According to him, the boy has no recent travel history.
The five persons who first tested positive during the day at the Chest Diseases Hospital were part of the same religious congregation attended by the religious preacher from Sopore who died on Thursday, said a doctor.
Four of them are residents of Bandipora district while the fifth lives in Jawahar Nagar, Srinagar, the doctor said.
The doctor, who is part of the government task force on novel Coronavirus, said the test report of a couple, aged between 40 and 45 years, from Ahmad Nagar, Srinagar, also came positive on Saturday at CD Hospital. However, he added, they had recently returned from Mumbai and had not come in contact with the deceased person from Sopore.
The total number of Covid-19 positive patients has gone up to 33 in Jammu and Kashmir, including 28 in the valley.
One of them, the 65-year-old man from Sopore, died on Thursday while another, a 67-year-old woman from Khanyar, has recovered at SKIMS Soura.
The health department has already quarantined nearly 100 of the deceased Sopore person’s contacts considering his travel history.
The Sopore man, who was associated with Tableegi Jamaat, had come in contact with many people at a congregation in New Delhi, recently, including people from Indonesia and Malaysia. Apart from Delhi, he had travelled to Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, Jammu, and several places in Kashmir since February.
His death has triggered a new alarm and prompted authorities to take stringent measures including closure of many religious places.
Earlier, family members of two positive cases who had recent travel history to Saudi Arabia, had tested positive, among them two minor grandchildren of a man from Natipora. Two persons from Rajouri district in Jammu who met the Sopore man (now deceased) in Jammu earlier this month also tested positive. The death and confirmation of new positive cases points towards community transmission of Covid-19 in the region.

Manzoor ul-Hassan