A 70-year-old man who was infected by the Wuhan coronavirus and died on March 18 is said to have infected the 23 patients out of the total 33 cases in the state of Punjab.

The senior citizen, who was a Gurudwara priest, had returned from a two-week tour of Germany and Italy with two friends from neighbouring villages and had dodged self-quarantine norms to socialize widely earlier this month.

Reportedly, He arrived in Delhi on March 6 and then drove to Punjab. Officials, who are tracking his movement learned that he had attended an event in Anandpur Sahib on or around 8-10 March and later returned to his village in Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar district.

As per reports, he met close to a hundred people before being tested positive of the novel coronavirus. He and his two companions are believed to have visited 15 villages across the state.

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It is notable that 14 people in his own family are tested positive of COVID-19 and his grand-daughter and grandson have socialised with many people.

Due to the reckless socializing activity of the man and the family, it is now reported that officials the three alone, (the man, his grandson and granddaughter) caused coronavirus positive cases in Nawanshahr, Mohali, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, and Jalandhar. 15 villages have now been sealed due to the activities of the one person.

In a similar case, Delhi’s Patient-10, a woman who had returned from Saudi Arabia is believed to have caused several contact transmissions. The woman had visited a mohalla clinic where the doctor contracted the disease from her, eventually passing it to his wife and daughter. The woman’s brother was one of the organisers of an anti-CAA protest in Jehangirpuri and is believed to have infected many others. The woman’s mother and two daughters have also been tested positive.

India has reported near 719 positive cases of novel coronavirus and 17 deaths.