Mumbai: 139 more passengers test positive for COVID-19 on board cruise ship that returned from Goa
Mumbai, Jan 5: Another 139 of total 1,827 passengers onboard the Cordelia cruise ship, which has returned from Goa, tested positive for coronavirus infection on Wednesday, said an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
These 139 patients were in addition to 66 passengers who were found to have contracted COVID-19 earlier.
Of the 66, 60 passengers had returned to Mumbai while six had disembarked in Goa.
A BMC official said the passengers who tested positive but have no symptoms will be quarantined at home, while the symptomatic ones will be shifted to institutional quarantine.
Earlier, the BMC's executive health officer Dr Mangala Gomare had told PTI that another 143 passengers had tested positive on Wednesday, but late at night the civic body revised this figure to 139.
The 60 patients who had tested positive earlier and returned here have been already shifted to various hotels besides the Byculla based Jumbo COVID-19 centre of the BMC and the government-run Saint George Hospital. The BMC update said that it collected 1,827 samples after the ship docked at the International Cruise Terminal at Ballard Pier in South Mumbai on Tuesday evening.
The BMC had appointed two private laboratories for conducting the tests and the samples were collected in two batches till 5.30 am, it said.
The passengers whose COVID-19 test came out negative will be allowed to go home, but it will be mandatory for them to stay in home quarantine for seven days.
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'Rear-guard action': BJP over Mamata accepting sports minister's resignation after Messi event
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Tuesday alleged that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's accepting Aroop Biswas' resignation as the state sports minister is nothing but a "rear-guard action" to douse public anger over the mismanagement of football icon Lionel Messi's event last week.
BJP co-in-charge for West Bengal Amit Malviya alleged that this is also an "open confession" that the Messi event fiasco was not accidental but a government-manufactured disaster, borne out of the poor governance of Banerjee, her ministers and the state bureaucracy.
Banerjee on Tuesday accepted Biswas' resignation as the sports minister in the wake of the controversy over the mismanagement of football icon Messi's event last week, a senior leader of the ruling TMC said.
Biswas, who had written to the chief minister seeking to be relieved of his responsibilities as sports minister, will continue as a cabinet minister, retaining charge of the power department.
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Reacting to the development, Malviya said in a post on X, "TMC Sports Minister Aroop Biswas resigns after the Messi fiasco and Mamata Banerjee accepts it in record time."
"Do not mistake this for accountability; this is nothing but a rear-guard action to douse public anger. anger! This is not 'Raj Dharma'," he added.
The BJP leader alleged that the incident was the outcome of "loot" of common people which is "so synonymous" with the TMC.
The incident was also the outcome of the "shameless VIP culture that TMC thrives on and deep-rooted cronyism promoted by Banerjee," he charged.
Malviya further alleged that Biswas' resignation exposes a "collective failure of Mamata Banerjee, her partisan bureaucracy, and her crony cabinet".
"This is a symbolic sacrifice, a political hoax, soon to be buried under layers of bureaucracy, with no justice, no accountability, and no remorse," the BJP leader said, adding, "No resignation will bring back the time lost, the money wasted, or the stolen chance for football lovers to witness Messi in Kolkata."
