Coronavirus: Jammu and Kashmir Government Extends Lockdown Restrictions Till January 31

Six cases were detected on Tuesday, 14 people were found positive for the new virus strain on Wednesday in India, news agency PTI reported.

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday extended the Coronavirus lockdown restrictions  till January 31. Meanwhile, six cases were detected on Tuesday, 14 people were found positive for the new virus strain on Wednesday, news agency PTI reported.

The ministry said the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), one at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani (near Kolkata), one at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune, seven at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS) Bengaluru, two at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and one at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi.

“All these persons have been kept in single-room isolation in designated health care facilities by respective state governments. Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts, and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on,” the Health Ministry said.

Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday recorded 234 fresh COVID-19 cases, while four more people died due to the disease in the last 24 hours, officials said.

The union territory’s COVID-19 tally has mounted to 1,20,527 and the death toll stands at 1,879, they said. Out of the fresh cases, 131 were from Kashmir and 103 from Jammu division. The officials said Srinagar recorded the highest of 69 cases, followed by 65 in Jammu district.

The number of active cases has dropped to 3,088, while 11,556 patients have recovered so far, the officials said. Jammu division and Kashmir Valley reported two deaths each.