TURA, March 29: There is immense worry about a possible spike in COVID cases in Garo Hills after 20 school boys, some as young as 12 to 13 years of age, residing in the hostel inside Don Bosco Higher Secondary School in the heart of Tura were found positive with the virus during contact tracing on Monday.
This sudden spike in the infection rate at a single cluster has sent health department officials into a tizzy and the sprawling campus of one of Tura’s oldest education institutions has been immediately turned into a containment zone for fourteen days.
The detection of such a large number of COVID infections began after the driver of the school bus was found carrying the virus.
“The driver had gone to donate blood for someone in the hospital and it was during mandatory COVID testing before donating blood that he was found positive. So we immediately began contact testing which led our surveillance teams to the school hostel where 20 boys out of 45 residing in the hostel tested positive. Those who tested negative have been separated from the group and isolated in the containment zone,” revealed West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh while speaking to The Shillong Times.
He added that most of the children who tested positive were in the junior classes of the school and had displayed no symptoms of the infection.
This is the first major spike in COVID infections since the lock down was eased across the state.
Following the detection, the district medical and health officer wrote to the DC seeking the declaration of the entire area as containment zone to extend the surveillance and contact tracing.
“We will be undertaking COVID testing of the teachers and others frequenting the school from Tuesday onwards,” informed DC Ram Singh.
He exuded confidence that the infection rate will be contained since there has been no physical classes taking place and students were currently undertaking online examinations.
But what has baffled surveillance teams is the absence of any travel history by the bus driver who tested positive indicating the spread of the virus undetected among the population.
There is more worry in store in the light of the ongoing election campaign for the GHADC polls wherein hundreds, and at times several thousand, people are attending political rallies, particularly in the plain belt region where the public have literally discarded the time tested preventive measures of hand washing and use of face masks in public places.
Just a day earlier, several thousand people thronged to hear Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma speak at an election rally in Phulbari where face masks were a rare commodity.