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Wrong to say Kolkata recorded its first COVID 19 case: Mamata Banerjee 

| @indiablooms | Mar 18, 2020, at 05:48 pm

Kolkata/IBNS: A day after a youth was tested positive for COVID 19 in Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday raised doubts and said it is wrong to say that the city reported its first coronavirus case.

"It is wrong to say that a case of coronavirus has been reported from Kolkata. It is the person who came from the United Kingdom," she said.

Banerjee also questioned how the youth was checked at the international airport.

"I do not know how he was checked at the international airport," she said.

She said everyone coming from abroad should be in quarantine.

"There is no VIP or LIP. Anyone who has come from an international flight has to be quarantined and has to follow all the procedures properly," she said.

West Bengal's home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, along with his wife Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee, who is the vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University, have moved to home quarantine a day after the home secretary held a meeting at Nabanna with a lady bureaucrat, whose son tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, reports said.  

According to officials, senior IAS officer Alapan Bandyopadhyay held a meeting with the woman WBCS (Exe) official, who has been kept in hospital isolation, at Nabanna on Monday.

"After knowing that the woman bureaucrat was admitted to Beliaghata ID hospital, state home secretary Alapon Bandyopadhyay along with his wife, Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee, decided to go under home isolation as a precautionary measure," a senior official in the state secretariat said.

"We will take further decisions after checking the bureaucrat's Covid-19 test result form NICED which is expected tonight," he added.

Earlier in the morning, the chambers of the bureaucrat at Nabanna and Writers Building were sterilized and sealed.

Sources in the state administration said the 18-year-old youth, who has tested positive for Covid-19, ignored health advisories and visited multiple locations, including a restaurant and shopping mall, in the city on Monday before taking admission to Beliaghata ID hospital.

"It's been informed that the youth had been advised twice- first by Kolkata airport officials on Sunday and later by M.R. Bangur hospital doctors on Monday- to visit Beliaghata ID hospital as soon as possible, but, he and his family members ignored both the advisories and finally on Tuesday he was admitted to the hospital," the source said.

Presently, the Covid-19 infected youth and six others, including his father, mother and two drivers, who came in contact with him have been kept in quarantine in Beliaghata ID.

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