The control room established in Srinagar for coordinating the elaborate measures put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus has received complaints about over 400 people returning to J&K from outside countries in the recent past who have hidden their travel histories.
These complaints have been received during this past week after the first positive case surfaced in the district on March 18.
Of these, over 200 cases have been verified after surveillance teams traced the persons. Of them, around 150 persons with recent travel histories to outside countries have been shifted into quarantine facilities.
The remaining 50-odd persons were found to have had national travel histories and were put under home quarantine whereas the remaining number of the total number of complaints received are being tracked.
It should be noted that a well-equipped control room with a robust mechanism for coordination and tracing of suspected cases has been established in the district. It includes an elaborate mechanism of surveillance with over 50 teams constituted to assist it in tracing suspected cases.
In addition to a full-fledged infrastructural set-up which includes IT-enabled apparatus and mechanism, the control room is manned with a dedicated team of IT and healthcare professionals. It operates under the supervision of Additional Deputy Commissioner Masrat Hashim, who has been designated as the nodal officer for it.
A total of around 1,750 persons with recent travel histories to foreign countries have been put under quarantine in 40 out of the 90 facilities set up so far in the district.
Each of these quarantine facilities set up in well-equipped hotels and government accommodations has been equipped with facilities for comfortable quarantine of those shifted there.
Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Shahid Iqbal Choudhary is monitoring these efforts to ensure that there are no lapses in the preventive measures the administration has put in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the district.
