17 Punjab policemen test positive for coronavirus

Seventeen asymptomatic Punjab policemen have tested positive for coronavirus in a random sampling of 7,165 officers posted at various police stations and doing frontline jobs, state DGP Dinkar Gupta said on Saturday.

It translates to around 0.9 per cent positive cases of the total samples for the police force, as compared with the average of two per cent positive cases for the entire state, he said.

Of the 17 positive cases, 14 belonged to district police, two (including a cook) were from the state armed police/Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) and one from Punjab Home Guards (PHG), he said in a statement here.

Sangrur has reported the maximum number of coronavirus cases, Gupta said. He said the state's higher percentage among the general population was understandable since testing of citizens is normally carried out either for symptomatic individuals or for their primary or secondary contacts, in contrast to the random exercise conducted among asymptomatic Punjab police personnel.

While 1,868 of the 7,165 samples collected till June 12 had tested negative, results for 5,280 were pending, the DGP said. The sampling process started on June 1 and efforts were being made to test a maximum number of police personnel posted in police stations and other high-risk areas on a daily basis depending upon the spare sampling and the testing capacity available with the health department, he said.

The DGP said all the 17 infected cops were in isolation, either in civil hospitals or in the COVID care centres established by the Punjab health department. On the directions of the DGP, testing of policemen was undertaken amid apprehensions of a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Around 48,000 policemen have been performing their frontline duties for the last three months, Gupta said. Meanwhile, a COVID-19 positive assistant sub inspector, with comorbidities, was reported to be in critical condition in Amritsar, he said. He was, however, not part of the random sampling exercise undertaken by the department.