MUMBAI: At least 10 staff members of a popular food joint in Andheri tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week.

BMC has sent all 10 to its Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) Covid centre while their high risk contacts have been told to quarantine themselves in an SRA building in Jogeshwari that the civic authority has turned into a Covid care centre (CCC-1).

Amidst the surge in Covid cases in the city, BMC has once again aggressively started testing for the virus.

Vishwas Mote, assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’s K-West Ward, said, “Earlier this week, during our testing of commercial establishments in the ward, we also tested the staff of Radha Krishna restaurant and found that 10 of the 35 were Covid positive. We immediately directed the eatery to shut shop and get the entire premises sanitised. The 10 were then shifted to the Covid centre at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) while high risk contacts have been moved into a CCC-1.”

Mote further said the restaurant had been asked to stay shut for two days and also deploy new staff for both cooking as well as serving. “We would be sending our teams to check whether they have deployed new staff,” he said.

When TOI contacted the eatery on Friday, John Mathias, its manager, said the food joint was open and they had got staff from other restaurants for now.

Andheri resident and advocate Godfrey Pimenta said the restaurant has been around for four decades.

“It is frequented by several locals as well. I remember visiting it during my school days too... While maintaining social distancing, use of masks and sanitisers at restaurants is a good precaution, the staff at these eating outlets should also be periodically tested. It may not be possible to get everyone tested very frequently considering the costs, but then random testing could be undertaken. Tracing all high risk contacts will be a huge challenge for the civic authorities as well,” said Pimenta, adding that it may be difficult to put on masks at all times while eating in a restaurant.