More on Covid-19

AJMER/JAIPUR: Curfew was clamped in Rajasthan's Bhilwara on Friday evening as the administration rushed to clear out public places and stop buses from entering the district after three doctors and as many nurses of a private hospital tested positive for Covid-19, taking the day's count across the state to eight and the overall tally to 17.Sealed borders, heavy police deployment on streets and shuttered business establishments in the otherwise busy Gol Market, Subash Nagar and Station Road areas reflected the urgency triggered by the spurt in Covid-19 cases overnight.Teams from Jaipur and Udaipur reached Bhilwara to screen primary and secondary contacts of the infected health personnel. "This is an emergency situation. Around 500 people who were in contact with the infected doctors and nursing staff have been already identified and isolated," district collector Rakesh Bhatt said.A 300-strong team has been formed to screen everyone in the area. "Nobody will be allowed to enter or leave the district before being screened," an official said.Urging people not to panic because of the lockdown, the district collector said the administration was arranging vehicles for supply of essentials to all residential colonies.Two cases were reported in Jaipur, one of them a 27-year-old woman who arrived in Delhi from New York on an Air India flight last Monday and travelled by bus to Rajasthan, stopping en route at a highway restaurant. The woman, a PhD student in the US, was received at the Jaipur bus terminus by her family's chauffeur and driven to her residence at Rangoli Garden. She spent two nights with her mother and niece before showing symptoms of Covid-19.The health department is drawing up a list of people who came in contact with the woman since her arrival till her hospitalisation on Thursday.The other Jaipur patient is a chef in Switzerland who arrived in Delhi on Wednesday with symptoms of novel coronavirus infection. The man travelled by bus from the airport to Kashmiri Gate and then to Dhaula Kuan , where he boarded a luxury bus to reach Jaipur on Thursday, a health official said.He hired an autorickshaw from the bus stop to a hotel in Gopalpura, by which time he was so unwell that he needed to immediately see a doctor. The man tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.