Confirmed coronavirus cases rise to 114 in India as Maharashtra’s numbers rise
The rise in coronavirus COVID-19 positive cases in Maharashtra prompted CM Uddhav Thackeray’s government on Saturday to close down colleges, colleges, and malls till 31 March 2020. Harsh Vardhan, Union health minister reviewed the status as well as the action taken by the states on Sunday.
A sharp rise in coronavirus COVID-19 positive cases in Maharashtra took the count of positive cases in India to 112 on 15 March 2020.
15 new cases were reported from Maharashtra which surpassed Kerala, 2 cases were reported from Kerala, and 1 each from Karnataka and Rajasthan making it a total of 19 new cases.
Presently Maharashtra has 33 coronavirus COVID-19 positive cases. The rise in infections in the state made the state government shut down schools, universities, and shopping malls on Saturday till 31 March.
Kerala was second in the list having 24 COVID-19 positive cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 12 cases, seven each in Karnataka and Delhi. 10 people have recuperated and 2 died last week out of the 112 COVID-19 cases across the country.
The Union Health Ministry said, “Both the patients died had pre-existing co-morbidities. Contact tracing of these people is being carefully done. Up until now, this has helped in recognizing more than 4,000 people and these people are under medical surveillance”.
In the last couple of days, the central and state governments have closed down schools, colleges, theatres, malls, and most of the check posts sharing a border with states having coronavirus COVID-19 positive cases, the international air passengers have been quarantined and advisories have been issued asking people to maintain social distance to decrease the spread of the virus.
On 15 March 2020, the government of Gujarat declared an epidemic and empowered certain officials to take action against suspected cases to suppress its spread even though the state has not recorded a single Coronavirus case. The state government of Gujarat with other states such as Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka has shut down all educational institutions till 29 March. Notably, 72 out of 77 tested samples in Gujarat were negative and the results of the remaining 5 are yet to come.
Public health experts have shared concern over the rapid spread of infections. Himanshu Sikka, chief strategy and diversification officer and lead, health, nutrition, and wash at IPE Global, an international development consulting company said, “The reason which makes pandemics harmful is that the populace generally does not have resistance to the disease and this can cause outbreaks past the traditional winter flu season. From an economic point of view, the key concern is not only the number of coronavirus COVID-19 positive cases but the level of disruption to economies from containment actions.”
The Union health ministry said, “all coronavirus COVID-19 positive cases either have a traveling history to COVID-19 hit areas or came in contact with relatives and friends who were infected. They also confirmed that there has been no sign of community transmission. The government claimed that the patient from Buldana, Maharashtra, admitted in a private hospital passed away on 14 March 2020 but he was not infected by COVID-19.
The number of cases around the world has raised to more than 156,400 with 5,833 deaths in more than 142 countries which prompted the WHO to declare it as a pandemic.
The disease spread in China has descended with the number of total cases settling around 80,000. However, COVID-19 has actually spread quickly in other nations, particularly in Italy and Iran. Both the two nations have around 34,000 cases together, and more than 2,000 people are dying due to the infection.
This made the Indian government to perform rescue procedures in both nations. S. Jaishankar, external affairs minister stated that 234 Indians stranded in Iran arrived in Delhi in a Mahan Air flight on 15 March 2020 early morning. And an Air India flight brought 218 Indians including 211 students back to Delhi including from Italy. V. Muaraleedharan, minister of state for external affairs said, “All the evacuated Indians will be quarantined for 2 weeks and the Government of India is devoted in connecting to Indians in distress, wherever they are!”.
The Union health ministry said, “The Indian citizens are been evacuating from coronavirus COVID-19 hit countries and quarantined at the ITBP camp at Chhawla, as per protocol. And 236 people have been evacuated today from Iran, which is the third batch and are under quarantine in Jaisalmer at the Army facility. All of them have been initially tested before their departure from Iran and are reported to be asymptomatic as of now.
The Indian government had evacuated 102 citizens in the first two flight operations from Iran. 265 people from COVID-19 hit countries have been quarantined at Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi.
Harsh Vardhan, Union minister of health and family welfare, on 15 March 2020 reviewed the status and the action taken by the states. He advised them to maintain hygiene and cleanliness in hospitals and follow all protocols for restricting and managing the infection.
The minister Vardhan instructed to scale up the 24×7 control room helpline (011-23978046) meant for answering the queries on COVID-19 by adding more human resource and lines.
The Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and Cabinet Secretary carefully keeping an eye on the situation of Coronavirus COVID-19, conjuring up powers under The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 to boost preparedness and containment of the infection. State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) is now available with State Governments for responding to COVID-19, which is constituted under Section 48 (1) (a) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. Numerous procedures have been taken by the Central Ministries together with States/UTs in terms of strengthened community monitoring, quarantine centers, isolation wards, adequate PPEs, trained manpower, rapid response teams for management of COVID-19.
All types of passenger movement for foreigners (except Nepalese and Bhutanese nationals) are suspended from March 15, 2020, through all Immigration Land Check Posts at the border. All existing visas, except diplomatic, official, employment, UN/International Organizations, project visas are suspended until 15 April 2020. All travelers coming to India including Indian nationals, arriving from or having visited China, Italy, Iran, France, Spain, Germany and the Republic of Korea after 15th February 2020 will be quarantined for at least 14 days. All international passengers entering India should mandatorily undergo screening.
Author: Sruthi S
