SHILLONG: The state government is beginning to believe that the carrier of the virus in all likelihood is from the family of the doctor, who was the first to test positive for COVID-19 in the state and eventually succumbed earlier this month.
Speaking to newsmen here on Friday, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said, “after consulting with the expert committee comprising doctors from different hospitals, as of today I would say the source is from one family.”
He said that if the source of the disease was from elsewhere, it would have spread and positive cases would have been detected in other pockets as well by now.
Earlier, Health Minister AL Hek had said that the District Surveillance Committee was trying to ascertain how the virus had entered the city and hoped the answer would be found soon.
It was earlier suspected that the late doctor’s son-in-law, who is a pilot with Air India and had returned to Shillong days before the former tested positive, could be the carrier. He, however, later tested negative thrice.
The deputy chief minister said that available indications pointed to the patients contracting the disease from the same source.
Tynsong said that the state does not have people with any symptoms from anywhere and the government is concentrating on that specific cluster of people. He said the government already has a strategy on how to contain the spread of the virus and ensure that there are no more cases, the reason why inter-state movement has been prohibited.
