NE NEWS SERVICE
RISHIKESH, MAR 24
Twenty-two tourists, who had travelled in a bus from Gujarat on a 15-day tour of north India, including Uttarakhand, have tested positive for COVID-19, an official said.
The tourists started from Gujarat on March 7 and reached Rishikesh via Pushkar, Jaipur, Udaipur, Mathura and Haridwar on March 18.
As some of them were found to have symptoms of fever during thermal screening on their arrival in Rishikesh, their swab samples were taken for RT-PCR test on March 18 and their reports arrived on March 22 confirming that they were infected with the novel coronavirus, in-charge of COVID cases for Narendra Nagar subdivision Jagdish Chandra Joshi said.
There were a total of 50 passengers from Gujarat in the bus out of whom 22 tested positive, he said.
However, tracing the infected tourists from Gujarat most of whom are women has become difficult as some of them provided wrong phone numbers, he said.
They had travelled up to the famous Neelkanth temple in Rishikesh, he added.
On a daily basis, 250 RT-PCR and 150 rapid antigen tests are being conducted here, Joshi said.