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Akhilesh Yadav has a question for Modi govt on coronavirus’ entry in India
Akhilesh Yadav wants to know how India got its first coronavirus cases if the government had taken advance measures to prevent its entry into the country.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav questioned the Centre’s claim of proactive action to prevent the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic in India by wanting to know if it had been effective in preventing the virus’ entry into the country.
The SP leader specifically referred to the claim that screening of international passengers had begun very early, even before the detection of a single positive case, to ask how the country still managed to get its first case of coronavirus.
“It was claimed that the screening started at different airports when there was not even a single corona case in the country. But then the question is if it was meaningful. If it is true, then it should be told how the country got its first corona case,” asked the Samajwadi party president.
India’s first three cases of coronavirus were reported in Kerala on January 30, February 2 and 3 respectively. The first case was of a female student in Thrissur district who had returned from China’s Wuhan, the first epicenter of the disease. The second and third cases were also of students studying in China who had returned home on vacation.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi credited the early measures taken by his government including the screening of international passengers and the national lockdown for the partial success in the containment of Covid-19 outbreak in the country.
“India had started screening visitors from Corona-infected countries even when we had zero cases of Corona. India had made 14 days of isolation necessary for every foreign visitor even before we had reached 100 patients,” PM Modi had said this morning, while announcing a 19-day extension of the national lockdown.
The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19
The prime minister added that the lockdown was announced even when the total number of positive cases hadn’t gone beyond 550 in a demonstration of the proactive attitude needed to address the problem before it exploded in our faces.
“Had India not adopted a holistic approach, an integrated approach and not taken quick decisions, then India’s situation would have been very different (worse) today. But the experience of the past few days makes it clear that we are on the correct path,” said the Prime Minister.
The health ministry on Tuesday said that the total number of positive cases in the country had reached 10,363, including 1,211 cases detected since yesterday. It added that the total casualties had reached 339, including 31 deaths registered since yesterday. A total of 1,036 people have been cured of Covid-19 including 179 people who have been declared cured in the last 24 hours.
