The danger of the dreaded coronavirus disease has become real in Jammu and Kashmir after two locals were identified on Saturday as “high viral dose cases with a probability of testing positively for coronavirus.”

All of the alleged COVID-19 patients were held in solitary confinement at the Jammu Medical College.

They had all escaped from the isolation ward earlier but were traced on Friday and placed in solitary confinement.

“We have an itinerary from Italy to India. Since arrival in Jammu, we are now seeing the arch of touch between these two and other locals, “said an official deployed on viral control and suspicious identification duties.

Reports here say that two months ago about 49 tourists whose travel route included Iran, South Korea and China entered the Valley.

Fortunately, these visitors were free from any contamination with coronavirus, but the fact that they entered the Valley without confirmatory testing puts the place at high risk.

In the last month, some 300 Shia Muslim pilgrims have been to Iraq and other areas, and have started to return to the Ladakh Union Territory district of Kargil.

Save for thermal scanners, there is no other confirmatory facility used to determine whether or not the pilgrims returning from Kargil are healthy.

Kashmiri Wuhan students in China, which is the COVID-19 outbreak epicentre, have already returned to the Valley and joined their families.

Parents of approximately 300 Kashmiri students studying in Iran have organized demonstrations for their children’s return to Kashmir.

Reports say that the foreign affairs have already begun an exercise

Ministry of taking those students back from Iran to Kashmir.

All tests of suspected COVID-19 patients are currently being performed in Pune and Delhi, where samples are being sent from Cashmir.

Valley’s only super specialty hospital chief, the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, has said samples of suspicious patients are now being sent to Delhi instead of Pune and the reports will be provided within 24 hours.

As a cosmopolitan tourist destination, Kashmir is more vulnerable to the disease than most other locations in the region.

The risk is doubled because of the Valley’s sanguine climate, where the average temperatures rarely rise above 27 degrees Celsius, which is considered to be the survival limit for the dreaded virus.