While spike in the Covid-19 positive cases and fatalities in Kalaburagi city is cause for concern for the district administration, positive patients remaining asymptomatic, so far, have given some breathing space to the authorities of Bidar district.

Bidar Deputy Commissioner H R Mahadev told DH, “all positive patients who returned from Delhi’s religious congregation are recovering. They are still asymptomatic and are in fine fettle ever since their admission to the isolation ward. Throat swab samples of positive patients have been drawn and sent for laboratory. If they test negative, the test will be repeated in 24 hours. They will be discharged from hospital if the second test returns negative,” he explained.

“On April 2, 11 people, who had returned from Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi, tested positive. On Monday (April 13) two girls, both primary contacts of an infected man, contracted virus and an 18-year-old youth tested positive for the virus on Friday. We have further tightened the lockdown norms as per the government guidelines to stem the spread of the virus in the old city area,” he said. The DC said throat swab and blood samples have been drawn from about 400 people on Friday and has been sent to Bengaluru for testing. On Thursday, samples of 300 people were sent. The samples are being sent to Bengaluru as the virology laboratory at Kalaburagi is already flooded with the samples. So far, 524 primary and 1,025 secondary contacts have been identified, he explained.