This fact came to light in a village in Punjab's Mohali district where 32 positive cases were reported in less than a week. All of them belong to close-knit families of the prime patient, who is the panch in the village.
Eleven new cases came on Friday in Jawaharpur village near Dera Bassi town, some 20 km from the state capital Chandigarh, which has a population of less than 3,000, and all contacts of the positive patient.
Mohali Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan told IANS the 10 new cases with no travel history were in the direct contact with the positive cases.
He said all patients were relatives and there was no case of community transmission.
"Extensive sampling has enabled us to identify more positive cases within the village and timely isolate them, hopefully containing the spread in the village with a population of 2500 plus, as well as beyond," he said.
The first case in the village was reported on April 4 with the 42-year-old panch, who is running a tent house, tested positive.
Doctors believe the tent house owner contracted COVID-19 from his part-time employee, who returned to the village after visiting Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz in March. He has been missing since March 30.
His first cousin is the husband of village's sarpanch.
Civil Surgeon Manjeet Singh said it is believed some outsiders stayed in the village till March 30 and they might be the source of infection.
Jawaharpur is now a containment zone with complete ban on movement of people.
Authorities blame the massive spread of the virus to frequent mingling of family members for the community kitchens organised by them to cater to the weaker sections during lockdown.
With the surfacing of 32 cases from a village, Mohali district that lies adjoining Chandigarh has emerged as a major hotspot of coronavirus with reporting of 48 cases -- almost one-third of state's total patients.
One woman was tested positive posthumously in the district.
"Health teams have sampled over 10 dead bodies and one positive case was reported," Dayalan said.
He said the posthumously tested positive was a woman resident of Mundi Kharar and died on April 7.
The Health Department said a total of 713 samples were collected in the district till April 9.