Yet another six migrant workers, who returned from Maharashtra, tested positive for Covid-19, taking the total number of official cumulative cases in Nadia to 23 in the last 24 hours. The district administration, however, deleted four positive cases from its account citing reason that they had tested positive outside the district.

At present, the district has 11 active cases and three persons have been discharged today. As the Nadia district falls under the orange zone, the fresh new six cases in a single day may put it into the red zone.

Dr Asit Kumar Dewan, deputy CMOH-II said, “All the six migrants have come from Mharashtra. They are residents of Gangnapur and Dhantala areas in Ranaghat. We sent the swab samples to Kolkata two days ago and their test reports have come positive for Covid-19 last night”.

Dr Dewan also said that a total of 30 persons, all relatives and family members of the migrants have been advised to stay in home quarantine and their swab samples have also been collected for tests. All the six migrant workers have been admitted to the Kalyani SNR Covid hospital, said Dr Ayan Ghosh, in-charge of the Covid hospital.

A few days ago, two migrant workers from Kerala had tested positive and they are the residents of Tehatta and Thanarpara areas. Four days ago, before the two migrants tested positive, seven persons including a nine-month-old girl had tested positive for Covid-19 in the last two consecutive days, taking the total number of cumulative cases to 16 till 14 May.

Panic gripped the locality soon after they were found tested positive. In a message, Mohua Maitra, a Trinamul Congress MP immediately urged the people saying, “The time has now come to be cautious about the spread of the virus because many migrant workers will come from other states in coming days. It was seen that the family members of the worker at Thanarpara had met neighbours and went to markets. If their test reports come negative, then there will be no problem. But, if the report comes positive, then we will have to send the persons who came in contact with them to the quarantine center to prevent any further spread of the disease in the community.”

Ms Maitra may alert the people, but her party leaders in the district do not adhere to the protocol for containing the disease. Today, Gouri Dutta, a TMC MLA from Tehatta organised a meeting with Imams where none bothered to maintain social distance. In Chapra, the party’s minister for correctional homes, Ujjal Biswas did the same ,where workers did defied protocols.