Uttarakhand man gets Covid-19 positive message on train, 20 passengers quarantined

Dehradun : Nearly 20 passengers of Dehradun Jan Shatabdi Express were quarantined after a co-passenger received a text message that his COVID-19 test reports have come positive.

The man immediately informed COVID-19 control room authorities that he had tested positive, scaring his co-passengers who overheard him saying this on phone, they said.

The 48-year-old man, who works at a battery making factory in Noida, boarded the Dehradun-bound train from Ghaziabad on Sunday afternoon despite the fact that his COVID-19 test report was awaited, Haridwar GRP Station House Officer (SHO) Anuj Singh said on Monday.

The man hails from Shyampur in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh.

The passengers of the train have been intimated with a message that he has been tested positive for coronavirus, said a Northern Railway official.

The positive man has been admitted to the isolation facility the Mela Hospital in Haridwar after he deboarded the train, Haridwar Chief Medical Officer Saroj Naithani said.

She mentioned that 20 co-passengers have also been sent into an institutional quarantine.

Northern Railway spokesperson Deepak Kumar, however, said, "He (the man) has been sent to a hospital while 19 others have been sent to a quarantine facility."

After the man got the message, he informed the control room through a toll-free number that he had tested COVID-19 positive. He made the call when the train was nearing Roorkee in Haridwar district.

Officials said that the man was asymptomatic.