Panaji:
The number of active COVID-19 cases in Goa rose to 37 after 11 more people, including an industrial worker and a woman, tested positive for the disease on Monday, officials said.
The new patients included nine who reached Goa by a train from Mumbai on Sunday and a woman who travelled to the coastal state in her car and was quarantined at Vasco, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said.
An industrial worker also tested positive for the infection, he said.
The worker was brought to the state from outside under licence of the Goa State Industries Association (GSAI) and quarantined at a hotel in Verna in South Goa along with others, officials said.
Samples of all the 11 people came out positive in TrueNat (rapid) tests, he said.
The worker has been shifted to a COVID hospital in Margao town of South Goa, Rane said.
He is the fourth industrial worker to be found infected with the virus in Goa in the last three days. Two workers were found positive for coronavirus on Sunday and one on Saturday.
As a part of process to resume industrial activity, GSIA has brought workers from outside Goa and kept them in quarantine facilities as a precaution before sending them at different sites, a senior official of the health department said.
Nearly 456 passengers who arrived here by the Mumbai- Goa train were tested since Sunday at a lab set up at Hospicio Hospital in Margao, according to a health department bulletin.
Till Sunday, there were 26 active COVID-19 cases in the state, but since Monday morning 11 new cases were reported, taking the tally to 37.
“All these patients have been admitted to a specially-designated COVID-19 hospital in Margao,” Rane said.
So far, 12 passengers of the Mumbai-Goa train have tested positive for coronavirus, he said.
Earlier, six passengers, who travelled to Goa in the Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram special AC train on Saturday, had tested positive for the infection.
On May 1, Goa was declared a green zone after all the seven COVID-19 patients previously found in the state recovered.
However, the coastal state has witnessed a rise in the number of cases over the last few days.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Sunday claimed there was no community transmission of the infection in the state.
