British actor Banita Sandhu (October, Adithya Varma) announced on social media on Thursday that she has tested negative for covid and was discharged on January 11. She was admitted to a private hospital in Kolkata after testing positive for Covid-19. The actor refused to be admitted to a government facility.
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Sandhu, who flew into Kolkata from the UK on January 3 to shoot for her upcoming English feature film Kavita & Teresa, was eventually admitted to the Medica Superspeciality Hospital after permission from the health department. She has been kept in an isolated cabin there.
Sandhu was supposed to get admitted to the Beliaghata Infectious Disease Hospital, which is the government facility treating all returnees from the UK who have tested Covid-19 positive and are suspected carriers of the new variant.
Whether she has contracted the new strain of the Coronavirus, termed as, Variant of Concern (VOC-202012/01) is as yet unknown, a health department official told PTI.
“We will be sending her samples for genetic analysis to Kalyani’s National Institute of Biomedical Genomics to ensure whether the actress is infected with the new strain of the coronavirus or not. After that we will follow the necessary protocol once the result is out,” the official said.
Sandhu had travelled in the same flight as the individual who tested positive for the mutant Covid-19 strain on his return from the UK.
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An official said that she was detected with the virus on Monday afternoon and steps were being taken to determine whether the infection was with the new strain.
Sandhu was counselled by several senior doctors of the hospital, but refused to leave the ambulance, reported PTI.
“We had to inform the state secretariat and the health department as she was unwilling to come out of the ambulance and at one point of time, she wanted to leave. The British High Commission was informed as we cannot let her go like this which is against the protocol. We had to inform the police also. They (police personnel) came and surrounded the ambulance so that she cannot leave,” the official said.
The hospital’s publicity relations officer told Silverscreen India that she was unable to comment on the actor’s current health condition at this time.