Maha count rises to 45; CBSE exams off Prime Minister to address nation on Thursday evening; Suspected Covid patient ends life in New Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation on Thursday evening on the situation arising out of coronavirus outbreak and the efforts to combat it. “PM Shri @narendramodi will address the nation on 19th March 2020 at 8 pm, during which he will talk about issues relating to Covid-19 and the efforts to combat it,” the PMO tweeted.
In another tweet, the PMO said Modi chaired a high-level meeting to review the ongoing efforts to contain Covid-19. “Ways to further strengthen India’s preparedness were discussed,” it said.
With schools in almost all states shut, the HRD ministry decided to launch e-classes on Swayam Prabha DTH channels for school students.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) also postponed ongoing class 10, 12 examinations till March 31. “All ongoing CBSE examinations in India and abroad postponed till March 31 and will be rescheduled thereafter... after an assessment of the situation,” CBSE secretary Anurag Tripathi said.
The ICSE board exams for classes 10 and 12 have not been postponed, board chief executive and secretary Gerry Arathoon said.
The Joint Entrance Exam for admission to
IITs and engineering colleges was postponed. The exam was earlier scheduled from April 5-11.
Late on Wednesday evening, the authorities reported first confirmed
Covid-19 case in Kashmir Valley. Government spokesman Rohit Kansal tweeted that the affected person is a resident of Srinagar’s Khanyar area who had returned from abroad on Monday. He said that he has been put in isolation and surveillance has started in the 300 radius of his residence.
A 35-year-old man suspected to be infected with
Covid-19 allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of the Safdarjung Hospital building in the national capital on Wednesday night, soon after he was admitted to the isolation facility by airport authorities, said the police.
Earlier, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan reviewed the preparedness of hospitals, availability of testing kits, personal protective equipment, medicines and adequate isolation wards in view of the novel coronavirus, whose total number of cases in India has now risen to 151.
One private diagnostic centre was given a licence to conduct tests while the applications of three more are under process after the government allowed the private sector to do Covid19 testing.
A day after the health ministry issued guidelines for private sector laboratories intending to initiate Covid-19 testing while appealing to them to do the tests free of cost, Swiss firm Roche Diagnostics India received a licence for conducting tests after approval from drug regulator DCGI.
The Drug ControllerGeneral of India is also assessing giving a license to another private diagnostic firm, bioMérieux, which has also sought approval to conduct tests. Officials said two Indian diagnostic companies — Trivitron Healthcare and Mylab Discovery Solution — have also sought approval from DCGI for the coronavirus testing kits developed by them. On Wednesday, 14 fresh cases reported from parts of the included one Indian Army.
Out of the total number,
134 are active cases under treatment, while 14 persons have been discharged from hospitals.
There have been three deaths so far. The positive cases include 25 foreign nationals.
The number of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra increased to 45 on Wednesday. A 28-year-old woman from Pune, with a travel history to France and the Netherlands and a
21-year-old male from Pimpri Chinchwad, with travel history to Philippines, Singapore and Colombo, tested positive on Wednesday. various country from the
Moreover, a woman from Mumbai with travel history to the US and a 50-yearold male from Ratnagiri, with a travel history to Dubai, were found positive.
The state government has also decided to work with 50 per cent strength in the administration. It also urged public transport authorities, including the Railways, BEST and metro, to curtail its passengers by 50 per cent.
Former Union minister and BJP MP Suresh Prabhu has self-quarantined himself at his residence for the next 14 days as a precautionary measure following his return from Saudi Arabia, where he had gone to attend a meeting on March 10.