Lucknow COVID-19 team’s data include US couple and one long dead  

The district health department in Lucknow has released Covid reports of two persons who are in the US and one, who died years ago.

Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Sanjay Bhatnagar said an employee was suspended and show cause notice was served to another on Tuesday after a probe found them guilty of the lapse.

According to reports, Ashray Jaiswal, a bank executive, tested Covid positive on October 6.

Two days later, a contact tracing team came to his rented house in Rajajipuram area to collect the samples of his wife and two children for tests.

The team gave Ashray a link of the portal where he could login to see the test results.

When Ashray opened the portal the next day, he was shocked to see reports of five other persons, along with his family members, with the same residential address.

"The reports of my wife and children stated that they were tested through the RT-PCR method. While my son tested positive, wife and daughter came negative. However, of five other names, three were of my landlord's family -- two of them were the couple who own the house and are currently in the US -- while third report was of the landlord's father who had passed away a few years ago. The remaining two persons are not known to me," he told reporters.

The team, apparently, noted the names of the landlord's family from the nameplate outside the house without actually collecting samples.

Ashray reported the matter immediately on the Covid helpline. "Thereafter, a contact team personnel arrived and apologised while promising to get my family's tests done again".