Amid the Coronavirus pandemic which has hit Mumbai badly, at least six employees of the iconic Taj Mahal Palace and Taj Mahal Towers hotel in south Mumbai’s Colaba have tested positive for coronavirus, on Saturday.
“Six Taj hotel employees are being treated at Bombay Hospital and they have tested positive. They are recovering and are stable now,” Dr Gautam Bhansali, consulting physician at Bombay Hospital, said.
The Indian Hotel Company (IHC) has been hosting doctors and health workers from various state-run hospitals, who are treating coronavirus cases and also those rendering other emergency services, at its hotels in the city.
IHC runs the Taj Hotel chain and has confirmed that some of its employees have tested positive for the contagious virus but did not divulge the numbers.
The company in its official statement said that most of the employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 were “asymptomatic, showing absolutely no signs of illness” and that they were tested proactively, but the statement did not reveal any numbers.
“However, staff testing positive and symptomatic were duly hospitalized and others who were in contact with them have immediately been put in quarantine,” the company statement said.
Apart from Taj Palace at Colaba, it also runs Taj Lands End at Bandra, Vivanta President at Cuffe Parade, and Taj Santacruz.
The south Mumbai hotel does not have any guests at present and only minimal staff are present to ensure upkeep of the property, it said.
When contacted, a senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation could not give any information as to how the civic body was treating the IHC properties where staff tested positive, according to news agency PTI.
The civic body official only said that three people had tested positive last week. Dr Bhansali said two of the patients were admitted on Saturday, while the rest had come earlier.
A doctor working for the civic body said last week they were accommodated in Taj Palace, Colaba, and later shifted to Taj Lands End in Bandra.
Asserting that all of its staffers found positive are from Taj Colaba, an IHC official said the property, overlooking the famous Gateway of India monument, has been completely sanitised and there is no one going in or out.
India is going to extend its lockdown for two more weeks as six states, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka and Telangana, already announced the extension till April 30 in a bid to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases in India crossed the 8,000-mark on Sunday at 8,356, with 273 deaths. Out of the 8,356 cases, 7,367 are active cases while 716 have been discharged.
Maharashtra is the worst affected with the Coronavirus outbreak so far in the country with 14,26 confirmed cases and 127 deaths reported with 208 beople being recovered so far.
A total of 3078 teams are working across the state towards cluster containment while surveillance of more than 10 lakh people is completed.
(With PTI inputs)