
Health department teams on coronavirus cluster hunt
The Hindu
State Health department officials are once again on the task of finding cluster of COVID-19 cases, where people with coronavirus are linked by a common place and time.
Now, in a few districts, the health teams are not limiting the tests to only immediate contacts of COVID-positive person. Anyone residing in the same village or locality as the patient is advised to undergo tests. The officials have come across one such emerging cluster in Mancherial. After a teacher in the Zilla Parishad High School was detected with the virus, 55 persons associated with the school were tested on Monday. Health teams found 12 more teachers, one cook and a student to have the virus. Contacts of those 14 will be tested on Tuesday.
In , the grape capital of India and host of the Simhastha Kumbh Mela every 12 years, environmental concerns over a plan to cut 1,800 trees for the proposed Sadhugram project in the historic Tapovan area have sharpened political fault lines ahead of local body elections. The issue has pitted both Sena factions against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra. While Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief, and Uddhav Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena (UBT), remain political rivals, their parties have found rare common ground in Tapovan, where authorities propose clearing trees across 34 acres to build Sadhugram and a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) hub, as part of a ₹300-crore infrastructure push linked to the pilgrimage.












