COURTESY HT JULY 13

1,538 Covid-19 patients missing since March traced, quarantined
Leena Dhankhar

Leena.dhankhar@htlive.com

Gurugram : The city police have traced more than 1,538 people who had gone missing after testing positive for Covid-19 since March this year, when the lockdown started.

Out of the 1,538 people tracked down by Gurugram Police, the credentials of at least 1,144 have been verified. Most of the missing patients had shared incorrect phone numbers and addresses, making it difficult for authorities to trace them.

Tracking patients and their close contacts is critical in curbing the spread of Covid-19, the police said. These patients were either found not living at the addresses provided by them or had mentioned wrong addresses in the form that they had filled at the private labs or at Civil Hospital.

Apart from the cyber cell of the police, the crime branch has also been reaching out to trace Covid-19 patients and their contacts.

Six teams, of seven members each, have been formed in the district to trace the patients who had gone missing. The teams comprise officials from the police force, along with those drawn from the health and district administration departments.

Police commissioner KK Rao said that all efforts are being made to ensure that every single patient who had gone “missing” is traced within the next two to three days. “Four out of every 100 positive case in the district was reported as untraceable. Such patients, fearing stigma, provide wrong credentials and switch off their mobile phones, thinking that they cannot be traced by the authorities. It is extremely challenging to trace people who have mentioned wrong addresses ,” he said.

As soon as details of untraceable patients are sent to the police, they start checking the addresses of the patient and a team is sent to the area to verify the name mentioned in the form. Simultaneously, the mobile number is given to the cyber crime team who get out the call detail records (CDR) of the patients and get the correct address of the patients through their friends and relatives. Once traced, according to SOPs in place, the patient is retested for Covid and then put in an isolation centre.

“The only threat is that people who test positive often roam around freely and infect others, leading to an increase in number of cases and fatalities due to Covid-19. We have registered cases against such people and have warned them of strict action. But still people are not sensitive towards the issue and are risking their lives as well as that of others,” said Rao.

Earlier, private and government labs only took samples of patients and maintained data without verifying their mobile numbers and credentials. People took advantage of this fact and started giving wrong detail, which led to a high number of untraceable cases, police said.

“To control the situation, the district officials starting generating OTPs on registered mobile numbers before sample collection,” said Rao, adding that strict instructions have been given to all the private labs and hospitals to ensure that no test is conducted if people have not given their address correctly.

Rao said on Friday itself, the joint teams at least put 61 patients under isolation at different facilities and their contract tracing was being conducted by the health department