A Hyderabad based top jeweller who threw a lavish birthday party attended by over 100 people of jeweller association, succumbed to COVID-19 on Saturday. Two days after the party, the host developed symptoms of coronavirus infection, following which he was admitted to a private hospital.
According to a report in Indian Express, the owner of another top jewellery chain, who had attended the bash, also died of Covid-19 on Saturday. Officials suspect he contracted the virus from the party host.
“Birthday parties, family gatherings to celebrate a birth, or youths getting together to welcome a foreign returnee are proving to be hotspots of coronavirus spread. Asymptomatic persons attending huge gatherings like this are spreading the infection,” Director of Public Health G Srinivas Rao told the Indian Express.
Health Minister Etela Rajender said, “Families are hosting birthday parties, organising engagement functions, or getting together at homes to celebrate a new birth. It takes just one among them who is infected to spread the virus to dozens of others and that is what is happening in Hyderabad”.
A similar incident from Hyderabad came into light wherein A police constable who distributed sweets after the birth of a son also tested positive on Saturday which infected 12 others who received the sweets from him.
The Telangana Health Department blamed the private COVID-19 testing labs for giving abnormal testing results and not adhering to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines and lacking adequate infrastructure and trained manpower and served notices to 13 such labs.
Meanwhile, according to the Union Health Ministry, 24,850 new cases were recorded in the 24 hours since 8 am on Saturday. The total is now 6,73,165 roughly 1,400 cases behind Russia, which is the third worst-hit nation from coronavirus. With the improvement in the recovery rate which is 60.80 percent now, the total number of coronavirus recoveries stands at 3,94,227.
