India tally crosses 1500
India Coronavirus positive cases have crossed 1500 as India is including closer to stage III as today also like the previous more than 200 cases are turning positive and more and more information are pouring.
However, the biggest news of the day was the Nizamuddin bomb where more than 2000 people congregated for a religious ceremony and remained there due to lockdown and more than 30 of them found positive and at least nine dead.
The virus caused four more deaths till the filing of the report as seven more recovered and at this moment there are 1320 active cases in India.
The Union Health Ministrymaintained the deadly coronavirus was still in the local transmission stage inIndia and yet to move to the community transmission phase, the Supreme Courtcautioned that fear and panic are becoming a bigger problem than thecoronavirus.
The 10 identified "hotspots"where "unusual" transmission has been detected are— Dilshad Garden andNizamuddin — are in Delhi, the others being Noida, Meerut, Bhilwara, Ahmedabad,Kasaragod, Pathanamthitta, Mumbai and Pune.
Nizamuddin in Delhi has emergedas a hotspot after a religious meeting there was attended by people with travelhistory to Indonesia and Malaysia. The Dilshad Garden index patient hadreturned from Saudi Arabia, passed on the virus to a doctor, who in turn sawover 1,000 patients at a mohalla clinic before being diagnosed.
The Union Health Ministry in itsdaily briefing said the Covid-19 is still in local transmission stage in Indiaand it took 12 days for cases of infection to rise from 100 to 1,000 at a rateof increase slower than some of the developed countries. Joint Secretary in theMinistry of Health Lav Agarwal asserted there has been no communitytransmission as yet.
The government also said therewas no immediate plan to extend the 21-day lockdown period, which entered itssixth day on Monday, while the Indian Army dismissed as "fake" socialmedia posts about a possible emergency declaration next month.
He attributed the slow pace of rising in cases in India to people's participation in strictly following the social distancing guidelines and the collective preemptive actions taken by the Centre in tandem with state governments.
Raman R Gangakhedkar, Head ofEpidemiology and Communicable diseases at the Indian Council of MedicalResearch (ICMR), said 38,442 tests have been conducted till now in India, outof which 3,501 were done on Sunday.
He said 47 private laboratorieshave been given approval for conducting Covid-19 tests and in the last threedays, 1,334 tests have been done in private labs.
