Confirmed cases of Covid-19 have crossed 17,000 in India, the Union health ministry said in its update on Monday morning.
Of a total 17,265 cases, 14,175 patients are currently under treatment, 2,546 people have recovered from the disease and 543 have died of it.
However, a Press Trust of India tally of the figures reported by various states as on Sunday 9:10pm showed 565 coronavirus deaths in the country.
While the Central government said there would be selective relaxation of the lockdown in non-containment areas from April 20, Delhi, Punjab and Telangana governments have said they will not be relaxing any lockdown rules in their state.
What you need to know today:
1. Health ministry and ICMR on asymptomatic patients
Detecting asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 is “our biggest worry”, ICMR’s senior scientist Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar told NDTV on Monday. He said 80% of cases in India were asymptomatic and that the only way to detect them was through contact tracing.
A day earlier, joint health secretary Lav Agarwal had said asymptomatic patients testing COVID-19 positive did not pose a big challenge as of now, according to PTI.
“That is what the historical data across the world has shown us. What is important for us is to be aware of this challenge. We need to make sure that even asymptomatic patients, if they are at high-risk, are monitored, taken care of and coordinated with,” Agarwal said.
The health ministry also said that if asymptomatic patients are cases of contact-history, then they should remain in home-quarantine, while those at high-risk, should go to quarantine facilities so that they can be effectively monitored.
2. Asymptomatic people test positive in Delhi, Maharashtra
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday that no lockdown rules will be relaxed in the capital from April 20, citing instances of asymptomatic people testing positive for the virus.
Kejriwal said of the 736 samples collected recently, 186 were found to be COVID-19 positive and these people did not know that they were carrying the virus.
The total number of COVID-19 cases has crossed the 2,000-mark in Delhi, making it the region with second highest number of cases in the country.
On Monday, health minister Satyendra Jain said rapid tests were most likely to start in the capital.
In Maharashtra, which has the highest number of novel coronavirus cases, over 70% of those reported are asymptomatic and the patients did not know that they were infected, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said.
Meanwhile, a month-and-a-half-old baby also died of the virus in Delhi, becoming its youngest victim, PTI reported.
3. Chemists asked to keep record of people seeking medicines for fever, cough
Authorities in several states have asked medical shops and pharmacists to keep a record of phone number and address of customers who buy medicines for fever, cough and cold -symptoms similar to COVID-19.
Advisories have been issued in this regard to chemists in states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, parts of Bihar and in Union Territory of Chandigarh.
In most states the officials have been clear that the information is to be shared with authorities to ensure that people are not hiding symptoms of coronavirus. (PTI)
4. Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad declared as containment zones
The civic bodies of Pune and neighbouring Pimpri Chinchwad on Sunday declared the areas within their municipal limits as containment zones and imposed further restrictions on people’s movement to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had said that the lockdown will be implemented more stringently in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad limits.
So far, 669 people have tested coronavirus positive in Pune district, with 51 succumbing to the infection.
5. Trump wants to send team to China to investigate coronavirus
The US wants to send a team of experts to China to investigate coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said, a day after he warned Beijing of “consequences” if it was knowingly responsible for the spread of COVID-19 which has killed more than 165,000 people globally, including over 41,000 in America.
Describing the coronavirus as a plague, Trump, during his White House news conference on Sunday, said that he is not happy with China where the pandemic emerged in December last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
“We spoke to them (Chinese) a long time ago about going in. We want to go in. We want to see what’s going on. And we weren’t exactly invited, I can tell you that,” the President told reporters.
“I was very happy with the (trade) deal (with China), very happy with everything and then we found out about the plague and since we found out about that I’m not happy,” he said.
The US has already launched an investigation into whether the virus “escaped” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The laboratory’s director Yuan Zhiming has said that “there’s no way this virus came from us”, according to AFP.
Zhiming told state broadcaster CGTN that none of his staff had been infected, adding the “whole institute is carrying out research in different areas related to the coronavirus”.