Covid Positive UK Traveler Flees Delhi Quarantine Amid New Strain Fear, Takes Train To Andhra

While authorities are on high alert because of the mutant Coronavirus strain reported in the UK, a female passenger who tested Covid positive managed to escape from her Delhi facility. Here's all that happened.

Representative Image (Getty)

Amaravati: A female passenger who arrived in New Delhi from the UK managed to flee from her quarantine centre and reached Andhra Pradesh by boarding a train. She was finally traced to Rajamahendravaram.  The woman in question had allegedly run away from a quarantine facility in the national capital and was held by the Railway police and health authorities to be admitted to a local hospital after Wednesday midnight. Her son, who went to Delhi to pick her up, was also admitted to another isolated room in the hospital. The woman who works as a teacher in the UK returned to India and landed in Delhi on December 21. After her test result came positive, she was kept in a quarantine facility in Delhi from where she allegedly escaped accompanied by her son and took the Andhra Pradesh Express to Rajamahendravaram. Alerted by Delhi Police, the Railway police discovered she was travelling by the first-class coach in AP Express, and then the information was passed on to the authorities in Rajamahendravaram. However, according to officials, the woman has claimed that she was only recommended to be in home quarantine and hence she left Delhi on her own as she is asymptomatic. Their swab samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune to determine whether the case is of the new strain of Covid-19 that has been detected in the United Kingdom, a Health department official said. Authorities have been on a high alert about testing passengers coming from the UK and isolating those testing positive as the new strain of Coronavirus reported there has been termed as a superspreader following the detection of the new virulent, "out of control" strain of coronavirus in the UK and has initiated various measures including rigorous testing of those who had arrived from England recently. As flights from the UK to India have been banned till December 31, the Union Health Ministery had also earlier clarified the situation by stating that it is incorrect to say that the new strain has entered the country until designated laboratory reports the same. "Genome sequencing has not so far been done in respect of the 15 passengers of the 590 who landed in Mumbai from the UK on December 22. Therefore, it's incorrect to say that the new strain of the coronavirus has entered India until it is established by a designated laboratory." said the Ministry. (With Agency Inputs) WATCH | COVID vaccine promise to be included in election manifesto?