Nanded did not report a single positive case of the coronavirus on Tuesday, while its neighbouring district Hingoli recorded a sudden surge with 20 new cases, after 19 jawans of State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) tested positive, and a 24-year-old nurse attached with the general hospital testing positive late on Monday. The district's tally now stands at 90. Authorities in Nanded are still on the lookout for four sewadars from Gurdwara Langar Sahib, who have tested positive. They have been missing since the day their swabs were taken for testing. Police have now registered a case against them. A press statement issued on Tuesday by the district civil surgeon of Hingoli stated that 19 jawans tested positive for the virus. “Thus the total number of SRPF jawans who have tested positive for the virus in the state is now 83 (82 in Hingoli and one in Jalna),” the release read. The release further stated that among all the jawans who have tested positive, 35 are posted at Malegaon in Nashik while 45 are in Mumbai. Late on Monday, a 24-year-old nurse attached to the general hospital of Hingoli also tested positive, as per the release. The first patient to test positive for the virus in this district has since returned home after testing negative twice; so, the total number of cases in this district now stands at 90. In the neighbouring district of Nanded, meanwhile, district authorities said 19 first contacts of a 45-year-old woman suffering from the infection tested negative. She died last week. The woman was admitted to a private hospital with a respiratory illness and had tested positive. Following this, the authorities had collected swabs from 40 employees of the private hospital, and, to date, 19 have tested negative. Also, 24 students who had returned from Kota have also tested negative for the virus. On Tuesday, the authorities collected swabs from nine more people, who may have come in contact with pilgrims from Punjab, who were staying at Gurdwara Langar Sahib, associated with Takht Hazur Sahib, one of the five temporal seats of Sikhism, for over a month. A large number of them started testing positive for the virus once they arrived at their home state after the Punjab government arranged for special buses. Of Punjab’s tally of 1,451 cases as of Tuesday evening, those who returned from Nanded account for 67 per cent (969 cases).
