The two passengers fled the isolation centers and reached their places of origin in Andhra and Punjab (Archive)
New Delhi:
Two passengers on UK flights who tested positive upon arrival in Delhi this week left isolation centers and arrived at their hometowns in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. They have been tracked down and admitted to government facilities amid concerns about a rapidly spreading mutant strain of the coronavirus found in the UK.
A 47-year-old woman arrived on Monday and tested positive for Covid on a rapid antigen test at the Delhi airport. Her 22-year-old son tested negative. Passengers on UK flights are being screened at airports across the country to verify the spread of a rapidly spreading mutant variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in Britain.
The woman was taken to Safdarjung Hospital and reportedly advised home isolation because she was asymptomatic. He then traveled with his son from Delhi to Rajahmundry on the AP Special Express, which arrived at midnight yesterday.
The railway police and health officials took her directly from the train station to the hospital.
“We have performed rapid antigen testing and RT-PCR for mother and child. We also sent samples to the National Institute of Virology in Pune for genome sequencing,” KVS district health and medical official Gowrishwara Rao told NDTV. The son has tested negative for the virus again and both are asymptomatic, he said.
The woman, a teacher in the UK, reportedly told officials that she left alone because she was asymptomatic.
The Andhra Pradesh government said the woman traveled first class and did not interact with anyone on the train.
In the second case, a man who recently flew in from the UK and tested positive for COVID-19 escaped from an isolation facility in Delhi and arrived in Ludhiana in Punjab.
The man checked into a private hospital in Ludhiana, but was sent back to Delhi, a senior Ludhiana official, Sandeep Kumar, told the ANI news agency.
“We received a call from Delhi that a man, who returned from the UK, escaped isolation and arrived in Ludhiana and was admitted to a private hospital. He tested positive for COVID-19, but the strain was unclear. They asked us to send it back to Lok Nayak Hospital, and we sent it back yesterday (Wednesday), “said Kumar, Additional Deputy Commissioner.
He said the administration was trying to track down anyone the man came into contact with.
The government suspended all flights connecting India and the United Kingdom from Wednesday to December 31 on Monday, as several countries announced similar bans.
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