As many as one dozen passengers among those who arrived in Goa from the UK after December 9 have tested positive for COVID-19 so far, state Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said on Thursday, amid concerns about overdetection of a new coronavirus variant in Britain.

Subsequently, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has asked the people, who have arrived in the state from the United Kingdom in the wake of a mutated coronavirus strain found in that country, to remain isolated for some period even if they test negative for COVID-19. He said the state government was monitoring the health of the UK returnees.

''Those who have arrived from the UK recently should get themselves tested. Even if they test negative in the RT- PCR test, they should remain in isolation and get themselves tested again,'' Sawant told before media on Thursday night. The samples of the people who have arrived from the UK have been sent for further testing at the Pune-based National Institute of Virology  Pune to check the possibility of the new strain, he said.

The Goa government had on Thursday said that the testing of 979 people, who had arrived in the state from the UK after December 9, was going on. The new strain of coronavirus found in Britain is reported to be spreading rapidly and is said to be highly infectious.

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