Nagaland registers highest single-day spike of 22 coronavirus cases

KOHIMA: Nagaland on Thursday registered the highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 22 cases reported, health and family welfare minister S Pangnya Phom said. With this, the total number of cases in the state has increased to 80.
All the 22 people returned from Chennai recently, he said.
“Out of 171 samples tested at the BSL-3 Lab at Naga Hospital Authority Kohima and Dibrugarh in Assam, 22 more returnees from Chennai have tested COVID-19 positive,” the minister tweeted.
A health department official said one of the 22 cases is in Peren district and has been shifted to a hospital in Jalukie town and the rest to a hospital in Dimapur.
Of the total 80 cases, Dimapur district has reported 57, followed by Kohima (17), Tuensang (5) and Peren (1).
Meanwhile, in yet another instance of negligence of standard operating procedure, a woman quarantined at a government facility in Dimapur was sent to Jalukie along with 16 others in government transport on Wednesday, even as her test result was awaited.
They are now quarantined at the government facility in Jalukie, said the state nodal officer for integrated disease surveillance programme, Dr Nyan Kikon.
He said the test result of the woman, who is in her early 20s and had returned from Chennai recently, came positive this morning along with 21 others.
She is asymptomatic but has been isolated, the official said, adding that all those in close contact with her would be tested for Covid-19.
The state government had issued a fresh SOP on June 1 after a similar negligence by authorities when a Chennai returnee quarantined at a government facility was sent to Tuensang district while the test result came the next day.
The new SOP states that those returning by Shramik Special trains would continue to remain in quarantine homes in Kohima and Dimapur until their tests are done.
After the Tuensang incident, the state government had removed the principal secretary of health and family welfare department, Menukhol John.