With coronavirus confirmed cases going over 1,100 and death count reaching 26 on Sunday, the Centre announced increased focus on high-disease burden hotspots across India and the State Governments intensified efforts to strengthen community surveillance, contact tracking and containment strategy.
The Ministry of Health confirmed 978 positive cases in the forenoon, but data collated from releases issued by various State Governments till late Sunday evening put the count of confirmed case to 1104.
Overall 26 people have died. Maharashtra has reported 6 deaths, Madhya Pradesh 2, Karnataka 3, Gujarat 4, and Delhi 2. One each person has died of COVID-19 in Bengal, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar.
“We are identifying emerging Covid-19 hotspots in the country and a rigorous cluster containment strategy is being implemented on a war footing,” Health Ministry’s Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said at a Press briefing here on the fifth day of the 21-day nationwide lockdown.
With over 200 positive cases each, Maharashtra and Kerala have emerged as the top two States with most number of infections followed by others like Karnataka, Telangana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh where number of positive cases has gone past 50.
Agarwal said that the Cabinet Secretary held a couple of meetings with the Chief Secretaries of all States in the last 24 hours to review the situation and for the effective implementation of containment measures.
The Government has also set up 10 empowered groups entrusted to oversee the Covid related management and prevention strategy at various platforms.
Agarwal added that the Government was busy upgrading the health logistics, including procurement and manufacturing of PPEs (personal protective equipment) like masks, sanitisers and also separation of the treatment facilities for coronavirus cases across States.
Agarwal said the ongoing 21-day lockdown has resulted in some behavioural as well as mental health issues and NIMHANS has launched a toll-free number — 08046110007 — for consultation.
The officer said States have been told to ensure there is no intermingling of non-Covid-19 patients with the infected ones and the process of shifting non-infected patients to other hospitals has begun as the creation of dedicated facilities for Covid-19 cases picks up pace across the country.
ICMR’s Dr Raman Gangakhedkar, who was also present at the Press conference said there were a good number of tests of Covid-19 happening in the country.
“Our infrastructure is spread across the country, I don’t think we are testing less. We have conducted 34,931 tests till today. Capacity utilisation in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) network is around 30 per cent. We have increased some number of labs also. Now, 113 Government labs have been made functional and 47 private labs have been given approval to conduct the Covid-19 tests.”
Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry Punya Salila Srivastava said employers must be instructed to give full wages to workers on the due date without any deduction for the closed-down period and landlords cannot charge rent for this period.
She also said the workers cannot be forced to vacate the premises. “The SPs and DMs will be held personally responsible for its strict implementation,” Srivastava said, referring to the orders issued to stop the mass exodus of migrant workers.
Asked to provide the number of patients presently on ventilator, Agarwal said, “Data is being monitored at State level. High risk cases, which include age and contact history as criteria and which are found serious are monitored. Figures are not available with me right now.”
The one spot of good news is that across the country, 94 Covid-19 patients - nearly 10 per cent of the total cases reported so far - have recovered from the disease. Globally, there have been over 6.9 lakh confirmed cases of COVID-19. At least 31,000 people have died so far. The US now has the highest number of cases, followed by Italy. Cases continue to surge in Europe.