Twenty people who arrived here bya special repatriation flight from Dubai three days ago tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, officials said.Fifteen of them were from Dakshina Kannada (DK) district and five from neighbouring Udupi district, which remained COVID-19 free for over a month, they said adding all had been admitted to designated hospitals.The returnees were taken to hotels and other facilities for mandatory 14-day institutional quarantine after they landed at the Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) on Tuesday night and their swab samples were subsequently sent for test.The test results of 125 passengers from DK quarantined here, the district headquarters, have been received and of them 15 tested positive, district Deputy Commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh said.The tests will be repeated again for all after 12 days, she added.Of the 179 passengers who arrived by the Air India Express Dubai-Mangaluru flight, as many as 49 belonged to Udupi and five others were from Uttara Kannada, she said.The 15 patients here had been admitted to the Wenlock Hospital while the five to TMA Pai Hospital.All arrangements are being made at the airport for the next repatriation flight from Dubai scheduled to arrive here on May 18, she said.Indian nationals stranded in foreign countries due to coronavirus lockdown halting of commercial air services are being evacuated under the Vande Bharat mission and the first flight that landed here on Tuesday carried 179 people, including 38 pregnant women and 12 medical emergency cases.Officials said a woman from Surathkal, who was under treatment for severe acute respiratory illness (SARI), also tested positive in DK district on Friday.With this, the number of COVID-19 cases in DK has leaped to 50, while Udupi, which was a gree zone with no cases for more than a month, has five new cases now.The number of active cases in DK district has gone up to 29. So far, five persons have died of the infection while 16 had recovered and discharged.
