Coronavirus : India crossed 62,000-mark,128 deaths 24 hours
NEW DELHI : The confirmed cases of coronavirus in India continue to surge and have now crossed the 62,000-mark. The death toll in the country surge to 2,109 as on Sunday morning. 3277 new cases and 128 deaths were reported in last 24 hours.
With 338 fresh novel coronavirus cases, Delhi’s tally crossed the 6,000-mark, while Maharashtra remains the worst-hit state. In a mega-evacuation plan, several Indians stranded overseas have been brought back to the country via ships and special flights.
According to a senior official of the health ministry confirmed that the recovery rate of corona virus patients is now 29.91 per cent with India recording the recovery of 17,846 patients to date. In a notable change of policy, the MoHFW also issued new guidelines for the RT-PCR test of recovered patients.
According to the new rules, patients with moderate, pre-symptomatic, mild and very mild viral load need not be tested before discharge from a Covid-19 hospital. At the same time, it is necessary for a patient who developed a severe illness to test negative for the infection before securing discharge.
Meanwhile, more than 3.86 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 2,68,620 have died. Italy has become the third country in the world to record 30,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus after the US.
While ,Tamil Nadu has become the third worst coronavirus-hit state in the country, surpassing Delhi after reporting over 7,200 cases. Maharashtra, with over 20,200 cases and at least 779 deaths tops the list, followed by Gujarat with around 7,800 cases. The national capital, with nearly 7,000 cases, has slipped to the fourth spot.
The bulk of cases were reported from Chennai, where the vegetable and fruit wholesale market at Koyembedu was declared a hotspot. More than 1,500 positive cases were found to be linked to the market.
Tamil Nadu has announced major relaxation in lockdown in non-containment areas. While across the state, private offices and tea shops will be allowed to open, the big change will be for Chennai, where strict lockdown was imposed on May 1. Coimbatore and Madurai were also placed under similar restrictions as the number of coronavirus cases in the state shot up.
As many as 334 coronavirus “super-spreaders” have been found in Ahmedabad so far, and it is the main reason for the order to keep shops of groceries and vegetables closed till May 15, officials said on Sunday.
“Super-spreaders” are the infectious disease carriers who could transmit the pathogen to a large number of people. They could be vegetable vendors, grocery and milk shop owners, petrol pump attendants or garbage collectors, who by the nature of their job carry the risk of getting infected and infecting others.
Till Saturday, Gujarat reported 7,797 coronavirus positive cases and 472 deaths. Of these, Ahmedabad alone has reported 5,540 cases and 363 deaths. An official in Ahmedabad said they believe there are around 14,000 high-risk potential super-spreaders in the city, and they have decided to screen all of them in next three days.
The AMC has also made it mandatory for owners and staff of shops and super markets to get their medical screening done by approaching their respective wards, and obtain “health screening cards” based on test results.
Both the Ahmedabad city and district administrations have undertaken the exercise to screen all super-spreaders to ensure they do not carry the risk of transmission before they go out to operate in the market, and also to regulate the number of such vendors, officials said.
(With Agency Inputs).
