COVID Panic: Mass Testing Ordered After Medical College Students Contract Corona

Mumbai: Thirty students of GS Medical College tested COVID-19 positive to trigger panic in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The civic body, which runs the hospital in KEM Hospital, responded by ordering RT-PCR tests for all students and relatives of affected students.

“We have asked KEM hospital administration to do COVID test for 1,100 persons — fellow students and also relatives of affected students,” said BMC’s additional municipal commissioner Kakani.

“In the last three days, we found 30 students to be positive for Covid-19. They are quarantined and some of them are shifted to Seven Hills Hospital – a dedicated Covid facility at Marol. Some of them have mild symptoms and we have kept them under observation. Most of them are vaccinated,” he added.

Those who have contracted the coronavirus are first and second year MBBS students.

“We have been telling the students to be careful. But they have been working together and eating together. They also stay in the RMO quarters where all of them are studying together till late hours. We fear that the numbers may increase,’’ a head of department of KEM hospital was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

The students tested positive despite almost all of them being vaccinated “treating them as healthcare workers,” KEM hospital dean Dr Hemant Deshmukh said.