Telangana: Omicron-hit foreign nationals keep police, health officials on their toes
HYDERABAD: Omicron confirmed Covid-19 patients pulling the disappearing act for a few hours have had the Telangana health department officials in a tizzy over the past two days, with one such instance each, on both Thursday and Friday.
Also, adding to the worry of potential local transmission of the Omicron variant, was the news that several residents in Panje Shah locality of Pathar Gatti area in the Old City, vacated their homes, locked them up, and left for ‘safer’ areas following discovery that one of their neighbours, who returned to the city a few days ago, was Omicron positive. The man was shifted from his house to the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences at Gachibowli, where seven other Omicron hit individuals are also receiving treatment.
On Friday, for the second day in a row, the health department lodged a complaint with the Hyderabad city police that a resident of Paramount Hills Colony, a Kenyan who tested positive for Omicron, was missing from his house. The complaint was lodged on Friday morning and the man was traced at a hotel in Jubilee Hills in the evening by the police, who handed him over to the health authorities to be shifted to TIMS hospital.
Banjara Hills inspector of police P Shivachandra said that they received a complaint from State Health Department officials stating that the Kenyan national, who arrived in the city, tested positive for Omicron, and was missing. “His mobile phone was switched off. He is a resident of Paramount Colony where most of the Omicron positive cases have been reported from,” he said. Police, which formed special teams, traced him based on information gleaned about his location from the last call he made from his phone. No case has been registered in this instance, the police said.
Meanwhile, health department officials have said that tracing some of the Covid-19 positive people was becoming hard, as was the case with tracing the two Omicron positive men who disappeared for a few hours on Thursday and Friday. In several cases, people were providing incorrect phone numbers, or incomplete addresses. Meanwhile, Telangana on Friday reported 181 new Covid cases, and one death from the disease.
The state health department said there were 3,782 active Covid cases in the state on Friday, of whom, 1,196 were receiving treatment in hospitals. Hyderabad city and the GHMC area reported 84 new cases, the highest for the day in the state.
