This is an archive article published on December 6, 2021
Quarantine returning flyers at Pune airport, says mayor as Omicron cases detected in Pimpri-Chinchwad
“It is important that those who returned from foreign countries are immediately quarantined on arrival rather than being allowed to go home and then undergo RT-PCR tests,” the mayor said.
Even as the administration of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) revealed on Monday that 138 persons have arrived to the industrial city from foreign countries, including high-risk ones, in the last few days, mayor Usha Dhore has called for returning flyers to be quarantined at the Pune airport itself in order to prevent the spread of Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“It is important that those who returned from foreign countries are immediately quarantined on arrival rather than being allowed to go home and then undergo RT-PCR tests,” the mayor said.
The mayor’s statement came after the civic administration held a press conference and revealed that 138 individuals have arrived in the industrial city from foreign countries. Many of them are residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad while some have come to meet their relatives. Of these, three have been detected with Omicron.
The mayor said the civic officials should talk to the Pune airport authority officials and ask them to conduct the tests and quarantine the flyers at a special facility. “If the airport authorities are not able to do so, PCMC should take the initiative in this regard and quarantine such flyers at Balewadi facility,” Dhore said.
Namdeo Dhake, PCMC house leader, said, “We have urged the commissioner to act promptly and, if required, take up the issue with the state government. If we allow people to return home and mingle with other citizens, it would lead to spread of the variant. Therefore, we need to focus hard on those returning from abroad,” he said.
Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil said, “We will have to consult with the state government in this regard. We are expecting that the government will come up with some guidelines.”
Throwing more light on the 138 individuals who have come to Pimpri-Chinchwad in the last few days, Patil said, “Of these, three have been detected with Omicron. They have been admitted to PCMC-run Jijamata hospital. Three relatives of these persons who have also been detected with Omicron too have been admitted to the same hospital. All of them have mild symptoms. Only one of them has mild cough; otherwise, all the patients are stable,” he said.
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Of the 138 individuals, 86 had undergone RT-PCR tests. “70 of them have been found COVID negative. Of the remaining 16, six have been admitted to PCMC hospital while genome sequencing report of 10 others is awaited,” Patil said.
The commissioner said, “Those whose genome sequencing report is awaited have been admitted to civic-run Bhosari hospital. Besides Bhosari hospital, we will admit Omicron patients at our other facilities like Akurdi and Thergaon. The Auto Cluster and Jumbo hospital are also being readied in case there is a spread of Omicron.”
The civic body chief said the administration was following the same treatment protocol that has been in place for COVID patients. “So far, no new treatment protocol has been received,” he said.
Patil said the civic administration is mulling bringing in some curbs. “We will discuss the issue with the state government,” he added.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
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