Uttarakhand: Hostels sealed after 90 students of IIT Roorkee test positive for COVID-19

A total of 90 students have tested positive for COVID-19 at Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Roorkee in the last few days, IIT Roorkee media cell in-charge Sonika Srivastava told news agency ANI.

The IIT Roorkee media cell in-charge further said that the Haridwar District Health Department has sealed five hostels--- Coral, Kasturba, Sarojini, Govind Bhawan and Vigyan Kunj and declared them as containment zones.

"The institute has about three thousand students, of which around 1,200 students live in these five hostels. At present, all students are being treated in hostels. The students who were preparing to come to the IITs, have been stopped till the next orders. All the students present on the premises have been instructed to take precautions," Sonika Srivastava told ANI.

Meanwhile, Uttarakhand has reported 787 new COVID-19 positive cases on Thursday, taking the cumulative count to 1,05,498.

Earlier, around 65-70 including students, teachers and staff at Rajasthan's IIT Jodhpur have tested positive for COVID-19 so far and 60 of them are currently infected with the coronavirus.

"Around March 11, some persons infected with COVID-19 had come here. They were from tribal villages Chandigarh, Gujarat and Jaipur. Then the cases started increasing," P Singh, Deputy Chief Medical Health Officer (CMHO), told news agency ANI.

"65-70 students have tested positive so far at Rajasthan's IIT Jodhpur. Of which 55-60 active cases. No serious case. Block G3 on campus declared a micro-containment zone. Most of positive students travelled from Chandigarh, Gujarat and Jaipur," he added.

(With inputs from ANI)