26 Indian Navy sailors test Covid-19 positive; massive contact-tracing op under way

NEW DELHI: In a major outbreak in the Indian Navy, at least 26 sailors have tested positive for the highly contagious coronavirus in Mumbai, which comes at a time when Covid-19 has adversely hit operations of at least four US and one French nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Sources said the sailors, who are from the main shore-based logistics depot INS Angre of the Western Naval Command, have been quarantined at the naval hospital INHS Asvini Mumbai.

A massive “contact tracing” operation is underway to find out the people who have come in contact with the sailors, all of whom stay in one particular block of the bachelors’ residential accommodation at INS Angre.

“The residential block has been declared a containment zone, with the entire INS Angre being put under total lockdown,” said a source. INS Angre is co-located with the naval dockyard at Mumba