Even as Bihar is on high alert for the new COVID-19 variant Omicron, it turns out that 322 of the 1,720 people who arrived in the State from abroad have switched off their mobile phones and samples of only 305 have been collected.
“We’ve managed to speak to only 429 people,” a senior official of the State Health Department told The Hindu, requesting that he not be quoted. “Out of them, samples of only 305 people have been collected and reports of 255 have been found to be negative. Reports of the others are still awaited”. When asked what about the others, he said, “they are traceless”.
The State Health Department has appealed to people coming from abroad to cooperate with officials in getting COVID-19 tests done in view of the new variant. “They should come forward for the tests. It will help the society at large in controlling the spread of Omicron. It is sad that most of them are either traceless or incommunicado,” said the Health Department official. “Some even try to mislead us saying they are out of station,” he said.
Recently on December 3, the Bihar government had revised its COVID-19 death toll adding a backlog of 2,424 deaths that were previously unaccounted. The death toll in the State now has gone up to 12,089.
On Wednesday, nine more COVID-19 cases were reported in the State from Patna, Nalanda, Gaya, Purnia and Samastipur districts. Bihar has recorded over 7.27 lakh cases so far.
In June this year too, the Bihar government had added 3,931 deaths to its reported 5,424 fatalities. The sudden increase was after bodies of COVID-19 victims were found floating in river Ganga in Buxar district on May 17.
