The total number of COVID-19 cases in India, including active and past cases, reached 1,251 on Monday, as 227 cases were added over 24 hours, the largest spike in a single day.
The rise in cases in India has sparked fears that community transmission may have already begun, however, the health ministry in an earlier briefing on Monday said that the disease was still in the local transmission stage.
Fears of mass transmission of the virus abounded after scenes of thousands of migrant labourers fleeing the city of Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), a situation that led to the Supreme Court observing that panic and fear was becoming a "bigger problem than coronavirus". The apex court has sought a status report from the Centre by Tuesday on the measures taken to prevent the exodus.
Migrant workers queuing up to receive rations in Delhi | Aayush Goel
The government also said there was no immediate plan to extend the 21-day lockdown period, which entered its sixth day on Monday, while the Indian Army dismissed as "fake" social media posts about a possible emergency declaration next month.
On Monday, Telangana and Tamil Nadu raised concerns over the possibility of a religious event in Delhi possibility infecting hundreds of people. The Telangana Chief Ministers’ Office reported that
out of those from Telangana who had attended, six had died. It is believed that COVID-19 had spread among some of those who attended a religious prayer meeting from March 13-15 at Markaz in Delhi’s Nizamuddin. Likewise, Tamil Nadu saw a surge of cases on Sunday, with four people linked to two Thai nationals who had attended the prayer meeting in Delhi.
The Tablighi Jamath conference in Delhi saw participation by Islamic preachers from across Asia, including countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and China. At least 1,500 people from Tamil Nadu attended the conference, out of which the state government has finally arrived at a list of 819 persons to trace.
As fresh cases of coronavirus cases were reported from various parts of the country including in Rajasthan, Haryana, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, including in Noida in the national capital region, the Delhi Police cordoned off a major area in Nizamuddin where several people showed symptoms of coronavirus after taking part in the religious gathering.
Officials said over 2,000 delegates, including from Indonesia and Malaysia, attended the Tabligh-e-Jamaat congregation in Nizamuddin West from March 1-15. More than 200 people have been admitted to hospitals after showing symptoms of the disease and test results for many of them are expected on Tuesday.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal later ordered FIR against the person who led the congregation.
Raman R. Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said 38,442 tests have been conducted till now in India, out of which 3,501 were done on Sunday.
He said 47 private laboratories have been given approval for conducting COVID-19 tests and in the last three days, 1,334 tests have been done in private labs.
Hearing two separate petitions through video conferencing, the court said it would not create more confusion by issuing directions on measures which the government is already taking, before looking at the status report from the Centre.
Separately, the government told all its departments to pay high priority to public grievances related to coronavirus.
The Railway Board told its zonal units to be ready to convert up to 20,000 train coaches into isolation wards for treatment of COVID-19 patients.
In Kerala, an elderly couple, aged 93 and 88, who had both tested positive for the virus, were declared completely recovered by Monday after being treated at Kottayam Medical College. Globally, patients above the age of 60 are considered ‘high-risk’ and make up the maximum number of deaths that occur as a result of the virus.
Kerala has the most number of reported cases in India, with 32 new cases detected on Monday, out of which 17 had links to foreign travel history and 15 were local transmissions. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra each reported 17 more cases, Delhi reported 25, Uttar Pradesh reported 16 and Rajasthan reported 20 new cases.
With inputs from PTI
