Coronavirus: Death toll in India rises to 17; cases soar to 724

New Delhi/Mumbai/Bengaluru

Coronavirus cases in the country soared to 724 on Friday, with three more deaths being reported.

A 60-year-old man died in Bhilwara on Friday morning. The man already had pre-existing kidney and heart conditions, an official said.

He visited a private hospital where doctors and nurses were later tested positive for coronavirus.

“The patient died on Thursday night. Doctors have attributed the death to his comorbid conditions,” Additional Chief Secretary (health) Rohit Kumar Singh said.

The state has some 43 positive cases so far.

The second death was reported later on Friday from Maharashtra, the state with the highest number of cases.

An 85-year-old doctor, a suspected coronavirus patient, died at a private hospital in Mumbai, officials said.

The state’s health department also said some 28 more people tested positive for coronavirus in Maharashtra on Friday, taking the total number of cases in the state to 153.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of deaths at four.

The third death came from Karnataka, where a 60-year-old man died at a hospital in Tumakuru on Friday hours after his test result came positive for COVID-19.

Eight of his relatives also tested positive.

This is the third death in Karnataka. The man who died did not have a history of travveling abroad, but did recently undertake a journey to Delhi by train.

He began to show symptoms upon his return, officials said.

He and eight of his relatives took the state’s total cases to 64.

In a tweet, state Health and Family Welfare Minister B Sriramulu confirmed the death was due to coronavirus infection.

 “He (60-year-old) had a history of travel to Delhi by train on March 13….His 24 high-risk primary contacts have been traced, of which 13 are isolated in designated hospital.

Eight tested negative and 3 are healthcare professionals, who are house quarantined,” a health department bulletin said.

These deaths have yet to be added to the Health Ministry’s tally.

WHO solidarity trial

Health Ministry officials said India is soon likely to participate in the WHO’s “solidarity trial” for developing potential drugs for COVID-19.

At a press briefing on coronavirus at 4 pm, Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said 75 new cases of coronavirus and four deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours.

“We are soon likely to participate in the WHO solidarity trial for developing potential drugs for COVID-19. Earlier we did not do it because our numbers were small and our contribution would have looked minuscule,” Raman R Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR, said.

Agarwal said that a PSU has been ordered to provide 10,000 ventilators while Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has been requested to purchase 30,000 additional ventilators in one-two months amidst a shortage of the machines in the country.

Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), said that states and union territories (UTs) have been requested to make arrangements for food, water and sanitation for migrant labourers. Hotels and rented accommodation should stay open and functional.

She, however, ruled out any plan to ferry stranded migrants from across cities or states, saying that the whole idea of a lockdown was to ensure no movement of people from their present places.

Agarwal also said that keeping in mind that hospital OPDs are being shut, the government has issued national telemedicine guidelines.

This facilitates the process wherein doctors sitting at their homes can provide services to the patients. We urge and request citizens to take advantage of it and doctors to utilise this,” he said.

 Lockdown

As the country entered the third day of the nationwide lockdown, the Union health ministry said there were 17 deaths due to COVID-19 and the total number of cases was 724 with 66 of the patients being discharged so far. The ministry continued to maintain that there was no case of community transmission yet.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba has asked states to immediately strengthen the surveillance of international travellers who entered the country before the lockdown as there appeared to be a “gap” between the actual monitoring for COVID-19 and the total arrivals.

In a letter to chief secretaries of all States and Union Territories, Gauba said the gap in monitoring of international passengers for coronavirus “may seriously jeopardise the efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19”, given that many amongst the persons who have tested positive so far in India have history of international travel.

On its part, the Delhi government assured people that medical staff was ready to tackle the situation even if the cases go up at a rate of 100 per day, and there was adequate medicines and testing kits.

While Army Chief Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane launched an initiative christened ‘Operation Namaste’ to extend all possible assistance to the government in containing the spread of coronavius, the NDRF chief said the force is getting battle-ready should its services be required amid rising cases.

“We have prepared 84 small core teams per battalion. The force is trying to cover 600 personnel in each battalion with personal protection equipment (PPE). We have informed the chief secretaries of all the states that we are on standby and can be called in, as and when required…” NDRF Director General SN Pradhan told PTI in a telephonic interview.

India is under a complete lockdown for 21 days since Wednesday, in a desperate measure to contain the spread of the virus. Globally, the death toll from the coronavirus has risen to 25,000 with more than 5.4 lakh cases reported in over 170 countries and territories.

As per the Union health ministry, four deaths have been reported from Maharashtra while Gujarat had registered three deaths.

Karnataka has reported two deaths so far, while Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh have reported one death each.

According to the data, the number of active COVID-19 cases in the country stood at 640, while 66 people were either cured or discharged and one had migrated.

The total number of 724 cases included 47 foreign nationals, the ministry said.

Asked about the cases from clusters, Union health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal, at the press conference, said contact tracing of all the cases is being done diligently as per defined protocols and in areas where more than one case has been reported, special teams have been deployed for house-to-house surveys.

Raman R Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR, also reiterated that there has been no community transmission yet in the country.

Agarwal said,”75 new cases of coronavirus and four deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours and that the Centre is working in tandem with states to ensure that social distancing is followed and the lockdown is implemented effectively”.

In Shillong, the Catholic Church has written to its parishes across the Khasi Jaintia Hills region to open the facilities as centres for quarantine, if needed, amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Shillong Archdiocese administrator John Madur in a letter said: “I understand we are in difficult times. But I am sure we can be of some services to humanity”.

The Catholic Church is one of the biggest churches in the state with over 3 lakh members.

New cases

Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra were among several states that reported new cases.

Maharashtra counted 31 new cases, taking its tally up to 156. As its tally continued to spiral, the state wrote to the Indian Army asking for its medical assistance.

Chandigarh and Punjab also reported new cases. Punjab reported five new cases, taking its tally to 31. Chandigarh added one new case to its list.

Andaman and Nicobar, and Jammu and Kashmir each reported four new cases.

Tamil Nadu reported six new corona positive cases, taking the state tally uop to 35. Agencies