Indian police order ‘cave-dwelling’ foreign tourists into quarantine – Report

By Asia Samachar Team | INDIA |

Six foreign tourists who tried to sit out the coronavirus pandemic in an Indian cave have been sent to quarantine at an ashram near a town made famous by the Beatles after running out of money, Indian police said Sunday.

The four men and two women — from France, the United States, Ukraine, Turkey and Nepal — had been living in the cave near Rishikesh in Uttarakhand state since March 24, police inspector Rajendra Singh Kathait told AFP.

They have now been moved to Swarg Ashram, where they will be quarantined for 14 days — although none have shown coronavirus symptoms.

“Before the lockdown began, they were living in a hotel in the Muni Ki Reti region but they moved to the cave after they ran out of money,” Kathait was qouted by the news agency. “However, they had saved some money to buy food and other supplies.”

In a separate news, Bloomberg reported that India today recorded its largest daily spike in coronavirus cases, adding 1,400 new infections to its tally of more than 16,000 amid a nationwide lockdown that’s about to enter its fourth week.

The South Asian nation’s cases have been surging over the last week as it gradually scales up its testing capacity. Confirmed infections are up 78% to 16,365 on Sunday, from 9,200 on April 12, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Infectious diseases experts say the true number of infections is likely much higher given that the Indian Council of Medical research said the country has tested just 372,123 samples from its 1.3 billion citizens. That’s about 0.03%.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week extended the lockdown until May 3, but announced that makers of information technology hardware, farmers and industries in rural areas would be allowed to resume operations from Monday to start to revive stalled economic activity.

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