Migrants returning to Bihar 3 times more vulnerable for coronavirus than those with no travel history

Bihar government’s strategy of keeping the returning migrants separated from rest of the state has once again proven prudent, with the updated Covid-19 test results on Thursday indicating a much higher proportional presence of the coronavirus infection among the returning migrants than those with no travel history.

Bihar health secretary Lokesh Kumar Singh on Thursday confirmed that since May 4, a day after the migrants started arriving in the state in special trains, the health department has tested 7,500 of them for Covid-19.

“Out of this number, we have recorded 352 cases of Covid-19. Clearly, 352 Covid-19 positive out of just 7,500 tests put the proportion of positive cases to almost 5 per cent,” Lokesh Kumar Singh said.

The highest number of 114 infected migrants has come from Delhi whereas 97 infected migrants have returned from Gujarat and 66 from Maharashtra.

There is a bigger warning hidden in these results too. “The number of infected cases has come only after random testing. We suspect the proportion can shoot further if we go for complete checking of the migrants. This is expected to be our next step too as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already ordered to raise the number of daily tests to 10,000,” said a senior IAS officer.

While the findings may not be applicable for all the migrants who have arrived in Bihar, however, the Covid-19 test results conducted on the migrants in comparison with those with no travel history, leave us with the obvious conclusion about migrants being a high-risk category.

Incidentally, Bihar has so far conducted 41,915 cases and recorded 989 Covid positive cases till May 14. If we deduct the 7,500 tests conducted on the migrants, it leaves us with 34,415 tests and 637 cases. This percentage of coronavirus positive cases among the non-migrants or those with no travel history works out to be 1.82 per cent against almost 5 per cent prevalent among the migrants. So, statistically, the risk of having infected migrants among those returning to Bihar is at least 2.5 times higher than those with no travel history.