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India’s Covid-19 tally crosses 90,000-mark; death toll at 2,872
The jump in the number of Covid-19 cases comes on the last day of the third round of the lockdown, which was first imposed from March 25.
India recorded the highest single-day spike in Covid-19 infections with 4,987 new cases in the last 24 hours as the national tally crossed the 90,000-mark on Saturday, according to the Union health ministry.
The jump in the number of Covid-19 cases comes on the last day of the third round of the lockdown, which was first imposed from March 25.
It is scheduled to end on Sunday night and the norms for the next round would be announced before that.
As of 8am on Sunday, the cases in India stood at 90,927, the number of deaths at 2,872 and the number of those recovered at 34,108.
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Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Delhi have three out of every four cases in the country. Maharashtra reported 30,706 cases and 10988 followed by 10,585 in Tamil Nadu. The national capital has 9,333 cases.
The health ministry has told the government that 30 municipal areas, including Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata which account for nearly 80% of India’s coronavirus cases, should have the maximum restrictions under lockdown 4.0 ground rules.
These 30 municipalities are spread across 12 states and Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for over one-third of these municipalities. Gujarat and Rajasthan have three cities each in this list and West Bengal has two.
The government’s renewed focus on the urban areas comes in the context of data that suggests these 30 cities are home to most of the country’s Covid-19 case.
Union health secretary Preeti Sudan held a special meeting on Saturday with municipal and health officials from the 12 states where the 30 municipal corporations are located. The meeting discussed the high-risk factors and reviewed indices such as confirmation rate, fatality rate, doubling rate, tests per million for these places.
Sudan also updated the states about the health ministry’s new guidelines aimed at such urban settlements, particularly informal settlements such as Mumbai’s Dharavi slums.
The last version of the lockdown that came into effect from May 4 had introduced considerable relaxations in districts that had not reported Covid-19 cases and eased restrictions elsewhere.
The Centre’s objective, starting from the first round of relaxations from April 21, has been to gradually resume economic activity.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi had this week told chief ministers that the Centre would opt for another spell of the national lockdown but made it clear that lockdown 4.0 would be very different from the earlier three versions.
PM Modi had also indicated that the Centre would let the states decide how to ease the restrictions this time.
