10 COVID-19 ‘hotspots’ identified
NEW DELHI: As the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases surge in India, the government has reportedly identified 10 “hotspots” where higher viral transmission has been detected.
The hotspots that have emerged across the country are Dilshad Garden and Nizamuddin in Delhi, Noida and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Bhilwara in Rajasthan, Ahmedabad, Kasargod and Pathanamthitta in Kerala, Mumbai and Pune.
The identification of these places will help ramp up the testing process.
Delhi’s Nizamuddin has emerged as a hotspot after nearly 1,800 people had assembled at the Markaz building there for a religious congregation earlier in the month. The area has witnessed 24 positive cases alone, while many others have been reported positive in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and other states.
Rajasthan’s Bhilwara town, situated 250km from Jaipur, also continues to remain a hotbed of coronavirus infection.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday said the country had fewer corona cases than in other countries. “Thousands of new cases and hundreds of deaths are being reported every day in various countries. In India 1,071 confirmed cases and 29 deaths have been reported so far,” said Joint Health Secretary Lav Agarwal told media.
“At least 92 new confirmed cases and 4 new deaths have been reported in 24 hours ,” agarw al said.
The Health Ministry had done a trend analysis based on number of cases and deaths reported in the country per day and found that the rate of transmission was much less than that in developed countries, given that the density of population in those countries is also lower than India.
“We have observed a trend that in our country, it took 12 days for the cases to reach up to a thousand from one hundred. On the other hand, in other countries, 3,500, 5,000, 6,000 and as high as 8,000 cases have been reported in this time-frame. These are developed countries and have less population than India,” said Agarwal.
The Joint Health Secretary said it could happen due to collective pre-emptive measures and focused actions such as social distancing and lockdown taken by the government and cooperation of the people.
“But as I said that this is a battle which we have to fight every day and we are dealing with infectious disease, if even one person shows carelessness, all our efforts will go waste,” said Agarwal.
“Right now we are relatively at a better stage,” said Agarwal.