Following the positive case detected in a 25-year-old man in Phuentshogling on Tuesday, the task force quarantined and tested all the loaders of the Regional Revenue and Customs Office’s transhipment area and Mini Dry Port. 12 men aged 22 to 45 tested positive.
However, all of them stay in the Mini Dry Port quarantine facility and not outside.
With 12 new cases, the number of active COVID-19 cases in the country has reached 28. A total of 181 loaders working at the RRCO transhipment area and Mini Dry Port are kept in a separate quarantine facility.
32 loaders work at the RRCO transhipment area. Among the 32, four loaders took leave on August 6th, and one of them had travelled to Thimphu. Two other loaders also took leave a day before the national lockdown. As per safety measures, loaders are granted leave only after testing negative for the virus. However, all those who took leave have been called back and quarantined.
From the Mini Dry Port, 26 loaders took leave. However, most of them stayed in Phuentshogling and are in quarantine now. The five who went to Punakha have been traced and quarantined in Punakha as well.
Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering in a press conference, yesterday, urged the public not to blame the loaders as they came onto the frontline to serve the country:
“I really feel for them. It is because of their efforts that we are able to eat food today. All the shops that are running and selling goods like CGI sheets, water pipes and everything have been unloaded and loaded by them. We have to thank them. To have worked in a place and situation like today and to have contracted the virus, I think it is serving the country for real.”
As of now, 224 primary contacts and 94 secondary contacts of the 25-year-old man, who initially caught the virus in Phuentshogling, have been traced.
Sherub Dorji/Sonam Penjor
