Migrants in Uttarakhand pose new threat to state as 84% have travel history to COVID-19 areas

Dehradun, May 20: The officials from Uttrakhand's Health and Family Welfare department said that return of migrant workers to the state may pose a new challenge for the state, with almost 84 per cent of the COVID-19 cases detected in the last 10 days. Also, it is reportedly said that the cases were earlier reported from plain areas, but the recent cases have been detected in hill districts.

On Tuesday, as many as fifteen new cases were detected and all of them have history of travel outside the state. Seven cases were reported from Nainital, three from Udham Singh Nagar, two each from Pauri Garhwal and Bageshwar and one from Chamoli.

According to The Indian Express, Yugal Kishore, the Additional Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department said that majority of the 792 samples sent for testing on Tuesday are of migrants.

"Testing rate and sampling are being increased for surveillance purpose. Pool testing is also being done," he said, adding sampling will be increased with rise in case load.

According to the official reports, as many as 43 COVID-19 cases were detected in the state in the past ten days. The total positive cases in Uttarakhand on May 10 was 68, 21 of them active. The doubling rate was 39 days. But, on May 19, as many as 111 COVID-19 cases were detected, 58 of them active. The doubling rate was down to 12 days.

However, the officials said that most of the cases that tested positive in these 10 days have a history of travel from Mumbai, Gurgaon, New Delhi, Amaravati and Surat.

According to the Uttarakhand government data, about 1.11 lakh migrant workers returned to the state amid lockdown relaxation, and more than 85,659 of them returned in the last 10 days.