A total of 17,656 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the country so far. Out of these, 2841 patients have recovered and were discharged from the hospitals while 559 patients have died. Briefing media in New Delhi, Health Ministry official said that India’s doubling rate of COVID-19 cases before lockdown period was 3.4 days and now it has slowed down to 7.5 days.
He informed that Mahe in Puducherry, Kodagu in Karnataka and Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand have not reported any COVID19 case in last 28 days. He said, the number of districts where no case has been reported in last 14 days has increased to 59 districts of 23 States. He said, the doubling rate of COVID19 cases is more than 30 days in Odisha and Kerala and there is no active case in Goa now.
Home Ministry official said that the Ministry is regularly monitoring enforcement of lockdown measures. She said, where violations of lockdown are occurring, suitable measures are taken in discussion with states. She added that the Home Ministry has also written a letter to States yesterday stating that guidelines made under Disaster Management Act are to be followed strictly. She said, States and Union Territories have been advised that they cannot dilute the Home Ministry Guidelines issued under the Disaster Management Act, 2005
The official said that the Ministry also wrote to Kerala Government expressing concerns over modified guidelines regarding lockdown issued by the State. She added that Kerala has allowed some activities that violate the Centre’s instructions issued under Disaster Management Act. She informed that the situation is particularly serious in Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai and Pune of Maharashtra, Jaipur of Rajasthan and Kolkata, Howrah, Medinipur East, 24 Parganas North, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri of West Bengal. She said, the Central Government has constituted 6 Inter-Ministerial Teams to assess COVID19 situation and augment state efforts to fight and contain the virus spread effectively. She said, the team has reached the assigned destinations.
Agriculture Ministry representative said that sown area of summer crops has registered 36 per cent increase over last year pushed mainly by rice cultivation. She said farming has been exempted from lockdown but social distancing has to be maintained.
ICMR official said that Rapid Anti-body Test is not used for individual diagnosis, as we do not know how powerful the antibody developed will be against the coronavirus. He said, it can be used for surveillance and and consistent errors will not affect assessment of infection trends in epidemiological surveys. On complaint regarding on repeat testing of some patients in West Bengal, the official said that RT-PCR testing kits need to be kept below 20 degree Celsius and if temperature is higher then proper test results are not obtained.
Discussion about this post