Around 100 more tests COVID-19 positive from Gyuto Monastery, total cases at 156

DHARAMSALA, 2 March: Around a hundred more COVID-19 positive cases have been reported from Gyuto Monastery on the outskirts of Dharamsala taking the monastery’s total cases to 156.

“Around one hundred Buddhist monks from Gyuto Monastery in Dharamshala have tested positive for COVID19 today. Total 156 monks have tested positive in the monastery. This locality has been declared as a containment zone,” India TV quoted Kangra Chief Medical Officer(CMO), Dr Gurdarshan Gupta as saying on Monday.

Last Thursday, for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19, twelve monks from the monastery tested positive for coronavirus followed by another 20 cases on Saturday though the monastery has been observing “stringent precautions and stayed indoors”  with the monastery closed for visitors.

The Deputy Commissioner of Kangra, Rakesh Prajapati admitted then that the development came as a shock to the district administration as the monasteries were still closed and the Tibetan community were planning to open them shortly.

Additionally, the CMO has said last week that “the monks who have been tested positive had no travel history.”

The majority of the cases from the monks are said to be asymptomatic and the infected monks are placed under quarantined within the monastery’s compound.

The authorities added in the update of the cases that to date, Himachal Pradesh has reported 8565 COVID-19 positive cases of which 8137 have recovered with 219 active cases and 207 deaths.

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), originated from Wuhan, China. The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020, and a pandemic in March 2020.

So far, the pandemic has infected 114,428,987 people and killed 2,538,582 people globally according to data from Johns Hopkins University.