: There has been no communityspread of COVID-19 in Puducherry till date, a top health official said on Thursday.The secretary to the union territory's Health Department Prashant Kumar Panda told newsmen there were only four active cases of COVID-19 positive in Puducherry and Karaikal regions.JIPMER, a centrally-administered hospital, has five patients from a district of neighbouring Tamil Nadu, he said.However, he said, people should realise that isolation and adherence to the lockdown norms, including social distancing and wearing of masks, were the only solution to tackle the spread of the pandemic.He said door-to-door surveillance covered so far 4.95 lakh families and population-wise it came to 19 lakh and the surveillance was to find out whether there was any case of symptoms of the infection.Panda expressed concern over not-so-encouraging number of people downloading the Arogya Setu app on their mobile phones as it would help contact-tracing.Director of Health Services S Mohan Kumar, who was also present, said with the relaxation of the lockdown norms being likely on May 17 there would be entry of a large number of people belonging to Puducherry, who were stranded in other states."We should screen these people and have to set up a core committee to carry out the screening. We have to also find suitable premises for meeting the demand of the high number of people after May 17 turning up for screening," he said.
