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Coronavirus Latest: India tally close to 5000-mark, Maharashtra goes past 1000
Coronvirus cases are approaching the 1.4 million mark worldwide with close to 80,000 deaths.
Total number of coronavirus cases in India was inching towards the 5000-mark with a total of 4789 cases registered till late Tuesday evening, including 124 deaths, eight of them coming in the last 24 hours, as per the latest data available with the ministry of health.
Maharashtra also became the first Indian state to register over 1000 positive cases as the state administration put the total at 1,018, including 116 fresh cases recorded in Mumbai alone, however, the central government’s figure for the state was still 28 short of a thousand.
In some good news, the health ministry said government’s containment efforts in worst-affected clusters was bearing fruit, notably in Agra, Noida, Bhilwara, East Delhi and Pathanamthitta due to the proactive measures taken at the ground level. The health ministry officials also highlighted the importance of the lockdown and social distancing measures in the overall strategy to contain the spread of the pathogen by citing a recent study by ICMR, which in lay man’s terms says that a coronavirus-positive person could have ended up infecting over 400 others had the restrictions not been in place, which have the potential to limit the spread per infected person to 2.5 people.
However, there is still no decision on a possible extension to the three-week nationwide lockdown in the light of requests by states like Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Karnataka favouring an extension. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are also said to be in favour of maintaining the restrictions beyond April 14.
In other important developments, the Centre said it had issued guidelines to states to streamline coronavirus disease management by dividing the health facilities into three categories-- Covid Care Centres, Covid Health Centres and Dedicated Covid Hospitals to segregate the management of mild, moderate and severe cases respectively.
The country’s testing capacity has also witnessed a gradual increase and the total number of samples tested now stand at 1,07,006 including 11795 samples that were tested between Monday and Tuesday.
One hundred and thirty six government labs and 59 private laboratories are authorised to test for Covid-19 at the moment even as rapid tests involving antibody testing have begun and the first set of results ratified by the Pune Lab.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has indicated that his government will ramp up testing along with tracing, treatment, teamwork, and tracking. He cited South Korea’s example to say that mass testing was required to contain the disease before it exploded like in other urban centres in Europe and America. The Delhi government has ordered conventional kits to test 50,000 people and rapid test kits to test 100,000 people and announced that random testing at hotspots will begin soon.
According to Worldometre, a website that tracks the total number of coronavirus cases across the world, India has the lowest rate of tests per million—102-- of the population among the top 34 countries battling the coronavirus.
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Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu decided to follow Centre’s lead as the former slashed the salaries of all public representatives including MLAs and ministers by 30% for the year and also merged the MLA local area development fund for the next two years with the state funds earmarked for Covid-19 containment efforts and the latter ordering the utilisation of Rs one crore from the MLA fund for purchasing medical equipment, drugs and for funding other prevention initiatives against coronavirus.
In other important news, states continued to encourage Tablighi Jamaat participants from the March event in Delhi to contact authorities to aid in effective containment measures with the Punjab government giving them (Tablighi workers) a 24-hour deadline to approach the nearest police stations and the Delhi police also issuing a similar order. Authorities in Maharasthra complained that around 50-60 attendees of the event have switched off their phones and were trying to hide in the state.
