India toll rises to 4, cases touch 173 Centre assures of reserve as people stock up on food

CORONAVIRUS A patient from Punjab succumbs to the disease as India reports 22 fresh cases across states RESTRICTIONS Centre says all scheduled international commercial flights won’t be allowed to land from March 22

NEW DELHI: A patient in Punjab became the fourth casualty of the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and the number of infections in India rose to 173 on Thursday as the country inched towards a partial lockdown, with the Union and state governments announcing drastic measures that includes barring all incoming international flights.

There were 22 fresh confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry said. Of these, Chhattisgarh and the Union territory of Chandigarh reported their first Covid-19 cases on Thursday while an infected patient died in Punjab, prompting the state government to suspend all public transport.

As the confirmed cases continued to climb in the country, the Union health ministry said it has found no trace of community transmission from a batch of over 800 random tests concluded so far.

The country’s apex biomedical research organisation, the I ndian Council of Medical Research, too said it will step up random testing to detect community transmission at an earlier stage, if at all, and start collecting samples from different clusters.

Experts have, however, warned that the tests concluded till now may be too small to represent the population and may not be of any use if the patients were asymptomatic at the time of collection.

Another Indian who tested positive for coronavirus died of the disease in Iran, a ministry of external affairs official told PTI.

Ahead of a national address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi late on Thursday, the government said in a statement that “no scheduled international commercial passenger aircraft shall be allowed to land in India from March 22”.

All citizens above 65 and children under 10 were advised to “remain at home”.

States were also directed by the national government to enforce work from home policies in the private sector, apart from those in emergency or essential services.

Some government employees are set to stagger their shifts and alternate working in the office.

In the letter, C Chandramouli, secretary, ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, said, instructions have been issued by the central government regarding certain preventive measures to be taken in the light of the spread of Covid-19.

“Given that this outbreak has been declared a global pandemic, it would be in public interest if similar measures are taken by state governments and Union territories. I request you to take measures as appropriate,” said the directive issued to chief secretaries of state governments and administrators of Union territories.

New Delhi has already suspended the visas of all incoming

EXPERTS SAID THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN DO LITTLE TO INTERVENE IN ANY LARGE-SCALE SHORTAGE OF MANUFACTURED ITEMS

Jan 22

NEW DELHI: Consumers in many urban centres are rushing to stockpile food commodities and essentials due to the Covid-19 outbreak, according to companies monitoring sales, but the Union government has assured that the country has sufficient foodgrain stocks in federal and state-held reserves, several times the required emergency buffer, to tide over any crisis.

India has nearly 10 times the emergency reserve needed for this time of the year and the country’s over-500,000 fair price shops are likely to be pressed into action to deal with mass distribution in case of any emergency, an official of the consumer affairs ministry said, requesting anonymity.

However, some experts said the government could do little to intervene in any large-scale shortage of manufactured essential items, and that the government’s procurement is mainly agricultural, such as wheat, rice and limited quantities of sugar and pulses.

An inter-ministerial group is in talks with industries to ensure steady supplies of essential items, as families fearing more restrictions on movement in the wake of the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak are stocking up on household items, the official said.

As of February 1, the Food Corporation of India had 30 million tonnes of wheat, while norms require 3 million as strategic reserve.