Corona updates 18-4-2020 India

1. Indian Navy has reported its first set of COVID-19 cases. Twenty-one sailors in Mumbai have tested positive. A massive operation to trace people who may have come in contact with them is on. The sailors were staying in the residential accommodation facilities of INS Angre - a shore-based depot that provides logistical and administrative support to naval operations of the Western Naval Command.
2. In Mumbai's Dharavi - Asia's largest slum - the number of coronavirus cases has crossed the 100-mark. Fifteen new cases were reported on Friday, which takes the total to 101. The city, with 2,073 coronavirus cases, is the worst affected city in the country; Maharashtra is the worst hit state. The city of 1.2 crore has been under a complete lockdown since the last month.
3. The recovery rate that indicates the number of people who have successfully fought off the illness is improving, Union Health Ministry has said. The rate stood at 13.85 per cent this morning, an improvement over 13.06 per cent on Friday, Thursday's 12.02 per cent, Wednesday's 11.41 per cent and Tuesday's 9.99 per cent. On Friday, 260 patients were declared cured from COVID-19 and discharged from hospitals. On Thursday, 183 were discharged from hospitals after they recovered.
4. Indian scientists are testing a multi-purpose vaccine that has proven to be effective against leprosy and boosts immunity in hosts to see if it can help tackle the coronavirus, the chief of country's largest public-funded research institution told NDTV on Friday. "With the approval of the DCGI (Drug Controller General of India), we have begun tests on the MW vaccine that has been successfully used against leprosy," Dr Shekhar Mande, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said.
5. Kerala is making the case for a 28-day isolation period after a man in Kannur, who returned from Dubai and showed no symptoms of coronavirus, tested positive nearly a month later. At present, a 14-day quarantine period is the norm.
6. Amid a countrywide lockdown, health officials and policemen are being targeted. In Bihar, four such cases of attack on health workers were reported across the state within 24 hours on Thursday. Two of them took place in Bihar Sharif, the hometown of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. On Wednesday, a team of doctors and other medical staff were attacked in in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad, when they went to take primary contacts of a COVID 19 patient who died, to a quarantine facility. PM Modi has repeatedly urged people across the country to support those providing essential services in doing their jobs.
7. India may touch its peak of coronavirus cases in the first week of May, after which the number will decline, sources in the Home Ministry have said.
8. After continuing a strict lockdown till April 20, the districts that are not virus hotspots will be allowed to resume some industrial, construction and manufacturing activities as the government attempts to restart the economy and move towards a gradual exit from the nationwide shutdown to prevent the infection from spreading rapidly.
9. Rajasthan, Punjab and Bihar, which were the first few states to announce lockdowns, have managed to avoid sharp jumps in positive cases compared to states that went for partial curbs at first like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
10. The World Health Organization said on Friday that many countries would likely follow China in revising up their death counts once they start getting the coronavirus crisis under control. Wuhan, where COVID-19 originated in December, on Friday admitted missteps in tallying its death count, abruptly raising the city's count by 50 percent -- following growing world doubts about Chinese transparency over the outbreak.
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Corona updates 17-4-2020 India

1. An internal government assessment suggests that India may touch its peak of coronavirus cases in the first week of May, after which the number will decline, sources in the Home Ministry have said.
2. "The next one week is crucial. India is going to ramp up its testing. All those who have symptoms related to Severe Acute Respiratory Infection will be tested," a senior bureaucrat told NDTV.
3. The government has made new additions to the list of activities that will be allowed amid lockdown in parts of the country that are least affected by coronavirus. Non-banking finance corporations and micro-finance institutions will be marked essential services that can resume. Coconut, spice bamboo, areca nut and cocoa plantations, and forest produce by scheduled tribes have also been added to the list.
4. Construction in rural areas of water supply and sanitation and laying of power lines and telecom optical fibres and cables will also be allowed, according to a notification put out by the Home Ministry.
5. After continuing a strict lockdown till April 20, the districts that are not virus hotspots will be allowed to resume some industrial, construction and manufacturing activities as the government attempts to restart the economy and move towards a gradual exit from the nationwide shutdown to prevent the infection from spreading rapidly.
6. Rajasthan, Punjab and Bihar, which were the first few states to announce lockdowns, have managed to avoid sharp jumps in positive cases compared to states that went for partial curbs at first like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
7. Rajasthan has 1,131 infected patients and 164 recoveries. According to data collected by the Home Ministry, the state has 7,448 people in isolation as of Thursday.
8. Though Delhi added 424 cases between Tuesday and Wednesday, the number of people in quarantine came down 15,327 to 14,504. Officials who are crunching the numbers say that states like Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are the big cause of worry.
9. Attacks on health officials have peaked in Bihar, with four cases being reported across the state within 24 hours. Two of them took place in Bihar Sharif, the hometown of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
10. On Wednesday, a team of doctors and other medical staff were attacked in Moradabad, located in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, when they went to take primary contacts of a COVID 19 patient who died, to a quarantine facility.

Corona updates 16-4-2020 India

1. A "hotspot (red zone) classification" would be districts or cities contributing to more than 80 per cent of the cases in the country or the state. Places that show a high rate of infection -- doubling rate less than four days - will also be in this category.
2. For a concerted push against the virus in red zones, the government said there should be special teams to conduct door-to-door surveys and tests. The tests will not just be for COVID-19. Patients of influenza-related illness and SARI (severe acute respiratory illness), will also be tested, since such patients have often tested positive for coronavirus.
3. Some industries in rural areas, e-commerce, IT and farming will be allowed after April 20, the government said on Wednesday in new guidelines a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the nationwide coronavirus lockdown till May 3 and said restrictions would be relaxed after a week in the least infected parts of India.
4. The government says it will also allow the construction of roads and buildings in rural areas and the manufacture of IT hardware to reduce the distress of millions during a prolonged lockdown to slow the spread of coronavirus.
5. States will be responsible for ensuring that all safety and social distancing protocols are in place, the home ministry guidelines say. The exemptions won't apply to hotspots. PM Modi extended the restrictions as India crossed 10,000 coronavirus cases despite a 21-day lockdown.
6. The inter-state transport of goods, essential and non-essential items, will be allowed after April 20. Highway dhabas, truck repair shops and call centres for government activities can reopen from April 20. So can manufacturing units of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.
7. Manufacturing and other industrial establishments with access control will be allowed in special economic zones, industrial estates and industrial townships after implementation of SOP (standard operating procedure) for social distancing. Manufacture of IT hardware and of essential goods and packaging can resume.
8. All air, train and road travel, educational institutions; non-essential industrial and commercial activities, hotels, cinema halls, shopping complexes, theatres stay closed. Social, political and other events, religious centres and gatherings will also not be allowed.
9. The country's top medical Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday said that a research study in China has shown that the coronavirus strain at the heart of the global COVID-19 pandemic is a mutated form of its variant found in bats.
10. "As per a research in China, it was found that coronavirus might have mutated in bats so as to infect humans," said ICMR's head scientist Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar. "There is also a possibility that bats might have transmitted it to pangolins, and from pangolins it got transmitted to humans," he said.
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