The extension of the ongoing lockdown by nearly three more weeks on Tuesday coincided with India joining the group of 20 worst-affected nations with over 11,400 positive cases.
Globally, the total number of coronavirus cases has crossed 19 lakh while fatalities have risen to 1.19 lakh. With over 5.8 lakh cases, the United States is the worst affected country, followed by Spain (1.7 lakh), Italy (1.6 lakh), France (1.37 lakh) and Germany (1.30 lakh). In the US, the death toll has crossed 23,600, followed by Italy (20,465), Spain (17,756), France (14,967) and the UK (11,329).
With more than 1,300 new Covid-19 infections reported in the past 24 hours, the total number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 11,477 according to figures collected from States till 11 pm on Tuesday. The death toll has risen to 390 while 1,316 patients have been cured or discharged.
While it took the country 70 days to report its first 5,000 cases, the next 5,000 have come in just six days, indicating a rise in the doubling rate of the infection.
According to the Worldometer, a website which monitors hourly rise of cases globally, India on Tuesday evening surpassed South Korea, Ireland and Sweden which have reported 10,564 cases, 10,467 and 11,445 respectively. In addition to front-ranking countries like the US and others, United Kingdom, China, Iran, Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil , Russia, Portugal, Austria, Israel, and Sweden are ahead of India.
Within the country, Maharashtra remain the worst affected State with 2,334 coronavirus cases followed by Delhi (1,561), Tamil Nadu (1,173), Rajasthan (873) and Madhya Pradesh (604).
The other worst affected States which reported three digit Covid cases included Telangana (562), Uttar Pradesh (558) and Gujarat (539).
Of the total 390 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 178 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 43, Delhi at 28 and Gujarat at 26, shows the Health Ministry’s figures.
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry, said at a Press briefing here that India has 602 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals having 1,06,719 isolation beds and over 12,000 ICU beds are ready.
In response to a query on the logic behind extending the nationwide lockdown till May 3 as announced by the Prime Minister he explained, “Our major effort is to break the chain of transmission. If there are no cases reported for 28 days from a particular area or the last negative case is reported 28 days ago, then we believe that the chain of transmission has stopped as cases have stopped coming.”
The 28-day period has originated from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s containment plan. According to this, the containment plan would only be scaled down if no Covid-19 case confirmed by a secondary laboratory is reported from the geographic quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed case has been isolated and all his contacts have been traced for up to 28 days.
“The containment operation shall be deemed to be over 28 days from the discharge of the last confirmed case (following negative test as per the discharge policy) from the designated health facility, i.e., when the follow up of hospital contacts will be complete,” said the Ministry in a strategy document.
The Cluster Containment Strategy would be to contain the disease within a defined geographical area by early detection of cases and breaking the chain of transmission.
Responding to a query on India lagging behind on the testing front as compared to other countries, an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) official said that if somebody is eligible for testing, then he/she will certainly be tested.
“If we are not able to find people to test for the disease, it shows that the number is falling or the number is low. It is difficult to say. We don’t say no to anybody for testing,” the ICMR official said.
Agarwal added that tests are done in accordance to the sampling criteria.
“If we test randomly, then our testing kits would not be utilised for the people who need to be tested. We have also increased our sampling zone -- patients with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) have been included. We have also introduced rapid diagnostic kits in the field. We have expanded the overall process of testing,” Agarwal said.
He said advanced screening procedures, prior to January 30, have played a major role in managing the deadly infection in the country and that “We are also expanding our testing through rapid diagnostic kits.”
More than 2 lakh Covid-19 tests have been conducted so far, said Raman R Gangakhedkar, senior scientist from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Additionally, we are ordering close to about 33 lakh kits for RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction) and 37 lakh rapid kits are expected to come at any point in time, he said.