COVID-19: Goa unearths its own 'patient number 31'

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In the ongoing COVID-19 saga, Goa may have found its own equivalent of South Korea's patient number 31, an infamous title conferred upon the country's 31st patient, who is believed to have spread the deadly virus to numerous people in Seoul.

In case of Goa, however, the 55-year-old patient, a US-returnee, was officially allowed to leave the isolation ward of a government facility near Panaji on March 25, before being summoned back by panicked hospital authorities in the evening after double-checking his COVID-19 positive status.

The patient had returned from the US earlier this month and had been in isolation for days.

On Friday, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that 42 persons who the state's three COVID-19 positive patients -- including the 55-year-old -- had met since their return to Goa from overseas had been quarantined, and suggested that the positive trio had met many more.

The 55-year-old COVID-19 positive patient alone, according to sources, met nearly 20 persons.

Sawant has warned of "huge scary scenario" in Goa on account of the extent of the potential spread of the virus, by the movements of the three patients, particularly the 55-year-old.

"The patients who are found positive are 100 per cent healthy. The patient who I was talking about yesterday, he is very fit. The other too are also fine, but this patient is 100 per cent healthy. Even today he can play football, he is so healthy," Sawant said on Friday.

Sawant also said, that the three patients have hidden their travel history, which is why the extent of the threat in Goa posed by them could be potentially expansive.

"They have hidden their travel history, and the people of Goa are yet to realise the consequences of this disease," Sawant said.