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PM Narendra Modi may announce key steps to contain Covid-19 in address to the nation
Ahead of the address by the prime minister, the government has banned all incoming international flights to the country for a period of one week starting Sunday, March 22.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s highly anticipated address to the nation to be telecast at 8 pm tonight is expected to announce key measures to contain the spread of novel coronavirus that has taken four lives in the country and infected 167 residents in its stage 2 amid calls for ‘total lockdown’ of towns and cities to prevent its progress to the next stage of community transmission, that can lead to an exponential rise in infections in a country of over 1.3 billion.
Ahead of the address by the prime minister, the government has banned all incoming international flights to the country for a period of one week starting Sunday, March 22.
Over the past couple of weeks, the government has consistently scaled up its testing and quarantine facilities while preparing for a possible explosion in the number of positive cases and has decided to rope in private labs for testing. 500 random samples were also tested to check for any evidence of community transfer of the disease.
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Experts, however, have called for more widespread testing for correct assessment of the status of the contagion in a country as densely populated as India, fearing that a late undetected surge could be fatal given over 8,000 lives have been lost globally along with over 200,000 infections.
Visas of all incoming tourists have been suspended and a ban imposed on the entry of passengers from the European Union, and other countries severely hit by covid-19. Government has also drastically restricted entry of passengers-- both foreigners and Indians-- through its land border checkpoints.
Incoming passengers from several countries are quarantined for two weeks in a mandatory process upon their arrival in the country.
Most schools and other hotspots for potential community transfer of the disease like malls, cinema halls, night clubs, gymnasiums, and swimming pools have been shut down across states along with popular tourist spots like the Taj Mahal and other ASI maintained monuments.
The widespread impact of the disease has sparked fears of recession with the financial and tourism sectors already hit in the country and growth forecast for the next fiscal lowered.
According to the latest data available, around 93 million Indians are engaged in so-called casual labour, and paid every day and they could be the first batch of victims of the slowdown in the economic activity due to the pandemic.
